Study the past, if you would divine the future.

—Confucius

THIS BOOK IS HIGHLY RELEVANT FOR THE CURRENT TIMES

TOO.

Nehru’s

Major Blunders

Unabridged Edition, April 2019

Revised & Enlarged to

127 MAJOR BLUNDERS

Rajnikant Puranik

Nehru’s 97 Major Blunders

Rajnikant Puranik

Categories: Non-fiction, History

Third Edition, April 2019

Revised, Enlarged & Unabridged Edition

as Kindle eBook, and as Paperback Abroad on Amazon.

First Kindle Digital Edition: July 2016

First Hardback Abridged Edition: Pustak Mahal, Nov-2016.

Revised & Abridged Hardback Edition, Sep-2018

available at PustakMahal.com and Amazon.

Please check

www.rkpbooks.com

for all the books by the author.

distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether

electronic/digital or print or mechanical/physical, or stored in an

information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission

of the copyright owner, that is, the author, except as permitted by law.

However, extracts up to a total of 1,000 words may be quoted without

seeking any permission, but with due acknowledgement of the source. For

permission, please write to rkpuranik@gmail.com.

Table of Contents
Preface
A Note on Citations & Bibliography
1. Pre-Independence Blunders
Blunder–1 :   Usurping Congress Presidentship in 1929
Blunder–2 :   Setting Jinnah on Path to Pakistan
Blunder–3 :   Scoring Self-Goal—Ministry Resignations, 1939
Blunder–4 :   Leg-up to Jinnah & the Muslim League (AIML)
Blunder–5 :   Assam’s Security Compromised
Blunder–6 :   Nehru’s Undemocratic Elevation as the First PM
Blunder–7 :   Aborted ‘Cabinet Mission Plan’ for United India
Blunder–8 :   NWFP Blunder 1946
Blunder–9 :   Making Jews out of Hindu Sindhis
Blunder–10 :   Giving Away 55 Crores to Pakistan
Blunder–11 :   Pre-Independence Dynasty Promotion
Blunder–12 :   What Really Led to India’s Independence?
Blunder–13 :   British Jails: Nehru/Top-Gandhians as VIPs vs.
Others
Blunder–14 :   Clueless on the Roots of Partition & Pakistan
Blunder–15 :   Unplanned & Grossly Mismanaged Partition
Blunder–16 :   No Worthwhile Policy Formulations!
2. Integration of the Princely States
Blunder–17 :   Independent India dependent upon the British!
Blunder–18 :   Nehru Refused J&K Accession when Offered!
Blunder–19 :   Allowing Kashmir to be almost Lost
Blunder–20 :   Unconditional J&K Accession Made Conditional
Blunder–21 :   Internationalisation of the Kashmir Issue
Blunder–22 :   Inept Handling of the J&K Issue in the UN
Blunder–23 :   PoK thanks to Nehru
Blunder–24 :   Nehru’s Shocking Callousness in J&K
Blunder–25 :   Article-370 thanks to Nehru
Blunder–26 :   Article 35A for J&K, Again thanks to Nehru
Blunder–27 :   Nehru’s Blood Brother Who Deceived
Blunder–28 :   Wanting Maharaja to Lick his Boots

Blunder–29 :   Kashmiri Pandits vs. Kashmiri Pandits
Blunder–30 :   Sidelining the One Who Could have Tackled J&K
Blunder–31 :   Junagadh: Sardar Patel vs. Nehru–Mountbatten
Blunder–32 :   Would-have-been Pakistan-II (Hyderabad)
3. External Security
Blunder–33 :   Erasure of Tibet as a Nation
Blunder–34 :   Panchsheel—Selling Tibet; Harming Self
Blunder–35 :   Not Settling Boundary Dispute with China
Blunder–36 :   The Himalayan Blunder: India-China War
Blunder–37 :   Criminal Neglect of Defence & External Security
Blunder–38 :   Politicisation of the Army
Blunder–39 :   Anti Armed-Forces
Blunder–40 :   Lethargic Intelligence Machinery & No Planning
Blunder–41 :   Suppressing Truth
Blunder–42 :   Himalayan Blunders, but No Accountability
Blunder–43 :   Delayed Liberation of Goa
Blunder–44 :   Nehru’s NO to Nuclear Arms
Blunder–45 :   No Settlement with Pakistan
Blunder–46 :   Responsible for 1965-War too, in a way
Blunder–47 :   International Record in Insecure Borders
4. Foreign Policy
Blunder–48 :   Nehru–Liaquat Pact 1950
Blunder–49 :   Letting Go of Gwadar
Blunder–50 :   Indus Water Treaty—Himalayan Blunder
Blunder–51 :   No Initiative on Sri Lankan Tamil Problem
Blunder–52 :   Erroneous Nehru-Era Map
Blunder–53 :   Advocating China’s UNSC Membership at Our Cost
Blunder–54 :   Rebuffing Israel, the Friend-in-Need
Blunder–55 :   Neglecting Southeast Asia
Blunder–56 :   India vs. the US & the West
Blunder–57 :   ‘Non-Aligned’ with National Interests
Blunder–58 :   Foreign to Foreign Policy
5. Internal Security
Blunder–59 :   Compounding Difficulties in Assam
Blunder–60 :   Neglect of the Northeast

Blunder–61 :   Ignoring Illegal Proselytization
Blunder–62 :   Ungoverned Areas
Blunder–63 :   Insecurity of the Vulnerable Sections
6. Economy
Blunder–64 :   Grinding Poverty & Terrible Living Conditions
Blunder–65 :   Throttled Industrialisation
Blunder–66 :   Neglect of Agriculture
Blunder–67 :   Builder of ‘Modern’ India
Blunder–68 :   Pathetic India vs. Other Countries
Blunder–69 :   Nehruvian (and NOT ‘Hindu’) Rate of Growth
Blunder–70 :   Nehru’s Socialism: The ‘God’ that Failed
7. Misgovernance
Blunder–71 :   Debilitating Babudom & Criminal-Justice System
Blunder–72 :   That Strange Indian Animal: VIP & VVIP
Blunder–73 :   Corruption in the “Good” Old Days
Blunder–74 :   Nepotism in the “Good” Old Days
Blunder–75 :   Nehru & Casteism
Blunder–76 :   Messy Reorganisation of States
Blunder–77 :   Poor Leadership & Administration
Blunder–78 :   Squandering Once-in-a-lifetime Opportunity
8. Educational & Cultural Mismanagement
Blunder–79 :   Neglect of Universal Education
Blunder–80 :   Messing Up the Language Issue
Blunder–81 :   Promoting Urdu & Persian-Arabic Script
Blunder–82 :   Neglect of Sanskrit
Blunder–83 :   Rise of the Parasitic Leftist-‘Liberal’ Class
Blunder–84 :   Mental & Cultural Slavery
Blunder–85 :   Distorted, Self-Serving Secularism & Minorityism
Blunder–86 :   Nehru & Uniform Civil Code (UCC)
Blunder–87 :   ‘Sickularism’ vs. Somnath Temple
Blunder–88 :   Would-have-been Communal Reservation
Blunder–89 :   Not Seeking Reparations from the British
Nehru and the Distortion of Indian History & Heritage
Blunder–90 :   No De-Falsification of History
Blunder–91 :   Being Creative With History

Blunder–92 :   Nehru & Negationism
Blunder–93 :   Distortions of History by Nehru Himself
Blunder–94 :   Being Anti-Hindu
9. Dynacracy & Dictatorial Tendencies
Blunder–95 :   Nehru’s Dictatorial Ways
Blunder–96 :   Nehru—Power Trumps Principles
Blunder–97 :   Nehru Curbed Freedom of Expression
Further Blunders Beyond 97
Blunder–98 :   “Democracy, thanks to Nehru?”—NOT True
Blunder–99 :   Nehru Promoted Dynacracy, NOT Democracy
Blunder–100 :   Not Limiting the Term of the PM
Blunder–101 :   Not Appointing a Successor, Deliberately
Blunder–102 :   Election Funding & Publicity
Blunder–103 :   Ensuring Self-Publicity & Dynastic Recall
Blunder–104 :   Communal, Vote-Bank Politics
Blunder–105 :   Promoting Incompetents & Sycophants
10. Nehru’s World View—That Harmed India
Blunder–106 :   Nehru’s Defective World View
Blunder–107 :   Nehruvianism & Nehru’s ‘Idea of India’
11. Hubris, Ill-Treatment of Others
Blunder–108 :   Modest Academics, Pathetic Grasp of Vital Issues,
Yet…
Blunder–109 :   Lordly Ways—Good Bye to Gandhian Simplicity
Blunder–110 :   Arrogant, Conceited & Full of Hubris
Blunder–111 :   Bharat Ratnas—Ignoring the Deserving
Blunder–112 :   Nehru & Netaji Subhas Mystery
Blunder–113 :   Nehru & Netaji’s Stolen War Chest
Blunder–114 :   Gross Ill-Treatment of INA
Blunder–115 :   Ill-Treatment of Netaji Bose
Blunder–116 :   Ill-Treatment of  Bhagat Singh & Azad
Blunder–117 :   Ill-Treatment of Veer Savarkar
Blunder–118 :   Ill-Treatment of Sardar Patel
Blunder–119 :   Ill-Treatment of Sardar Patel’s Daughter Maniben
Blunder–120 :   Ill-Treatment of Dr Ambedkar
Blunder–121 :   Ill-Treatment of Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee

Blunder–122 :   Ill-Treatment of Dr Rajendra Prasad
Blunder–123 :   Ill-treatment of PD Tandon
Blunder–124 :   Ill-Treatment of Bordoloi
Blunder–125 :   Ill-Treatment of General Thimayya
Blunder–126 :   Ill-Treatment of Public
Blunder–127 :   Special Treatment for Edwina Mountbatten
12. Even More Blunders & Related Aspects
Nehru Gifted Kabo Valley
Paying Respects to Babar!
13. Evaluating Nehru
14. Bibliography

PREFACE

...[then] it seemed to me that Jawaharlal should be the new President [of

Congress in 1946—and hence the first Prime Minister] ...I acted according

to my best judgement but the way things have shaped since then has made

me to realise that this was perhaps the greatest blunder of my political life...

My second mistake was that when I decided not to stand myself, I did not

support Sardar Patel.

—Abul Kalam Azad, ‘India Wins Freedom’ {Azad/162}

He [Nehru] had no idea of economics. He talked of socialism, but he did

not know how to define it. He talked of social justice, but I told him he

could have this only when there was an increase in production. He did not

grasp that. So you need a leader who understands economic issues and will

invigorate your economy.

—Chester Bowles, US Ambassador

On Nehru: “…a man of echoes and mimicry, the last viceroy rather than the

first leader of a liberated India.”

—Malcolm Muggeridge, British journalist {SG/193}

If the future is full of hope it is largely because of Soviet Russia.

—Jawaharlal Nehru {URL28}

A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart; an old man who is a

socialist hasn't got a head.

—David Lloyd George, UK PM (1916-22)

“Poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that

create poverty.” Such countries develop “extractive” institutions that “keep

poor countries poor”.

—Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in ‘Why Nations Fail’

(Nehru laid the foundations of ‘Extractive Institutions’)

Said Nehru

(“The Nabob of Cluelessness”, as someone remarked)

I can tell this House [Parliament] that at no time since our independence,

and of course before it, were our defence forces in better condition, in finer

fettle...than they are today…{Max/132} (prior to 1962 India-China war)

(I hope I am not leaving you as cannon fodder for the Chinese. God bless

you all.—Army chief KS Thimayya in his farewell speech in 1961)

It is completely impracticable for the Chinese Government to think of

anything in the nature of invasion of India. Therefore I rule it out...{AS/103}

We were getting out of touch with reality in the modern world and we were

living in an artificial atmosphere of our creation...{Zak/149}

We feel India has been ill-repaid for her diplomatic friendliness toward

Peking... Difficult to say the Chinese have deliberately deceived us... We

may have deceived ourselves...{AS/38}

But for a series of major blunders by Nehru across the spectrum—it

would not be an exaggeration to say that he blundered comprehensively—

India would have been on a rapidly ascending path to becoming a shining,

prosperous, first-world country by the end of his term, and would surely

have become so by early 1980s—provided, of course, Nehru’s dynasty had

not followed him to power. Sadly, the Nehru era laid the foundations of

India’s poverty and misery, condemning it to be forever a developing, third-

rate, third-world country. By chronicling those blunders, this book

highlights THE FACTS BEHIND THE FACADE.

Blunders is used in this book as a general term to also include failures,

neglect, wrong policies, bad decisions, despicable and disgraceful acts,

usurping undeserved posts, etc.

It is not the intention of this book to be critical of Nehru, but historical

facts, that have often been distorted or glossed over or suppressed must be

known widely, lest the mistakes be repeated, and so that India has a brighter

future.

Unable to eulogise Nehru on facts, many admirers resort to innovative

counterfactuals like: “Had it not been for Nehru India would not have

remained united and secular. But for Nehru, there would have been no

democracy, and the citizens would not have enjoyed freedom...” (Pl. check

chapter-9) If facts don’t help you, go by presumptions and probabilities!

What if one advanced an alternate counterfactual and argued that an

alternate person (like say Sardar Patel or C Rajagopalachari or

Dr BR Ambedkar) as prime minister would have made India more united,

more secure, more secular and free from communalism, more democratic

and much more prosperous—on way to a first-world nation by 1964!

Nehru’s leadership is unique not only in terms of the paucity of

achievements, or the large gap between the potential and the actuals, or a

very poor show compared to other comparable nations; but in the blunders

that he made. Other leaders too make mistakes, but Nehru can beat them all

hands down. The number, the extent, and the comprehensiveness of the

Nehruvian blunders can’t be matched. Comprehensive? Other leaders

blunder in one or two or three areas. Not Nehru. His was a 360 degree

coverage. He blundered in practically all areas (and sub-areas, and in very

many ways): external security, internal security, foreign policy, economy,

education, culture,… it’s a long list. An examination of his record leaves

you gasping. Here is a very cryptic label to capture the essential Nehru:

“Nabob of Cluelessness”.

Nehru bequeathed a toxic political (dynastic and undemocratic),

economic (socialistic), industrial (inefficient and burdensome public and

state sector), agricultural (neglected and starved), geographic (most borders

insecure), administrative (incompetent and corrupt babudom), historical

(Marxist and Leftist distortion), educational (elitist, and no universal

literacy), and cultural (no pride in Indian heritage) legacy.

Of course, quite irrespective of the fact that the balance-sheet of the

Nehru-period was deep in red, it cannot be denied that Nehru meant well: it

is another matter that his erroneous understanding of economics, foreign

affairs, external security and many more things led to policies that proved

disastrous for the country. Also, he was well-intentioned. But, then, road to

hell is often paved with good intentions!

One may say: Why sweat over Nehru? He is long gone. Long gone—

physically. But, much of his thinking and policies still unfortunately

survive. It is necessary to understand that he followed a wrong path, and the

nation needs to gain freedom from those ideas and forge ahead. There is

nothing personal here. Nobody has anything against Nehru, as a person.

But, if thanks to his policies, millions suffered, and thanks to the

continuation of his policies, millions continue to suffer, then it is not a dead

historical question.

THIS BOOK IS HIGHLY RELEVANT FOR THE CURRENT TIMES

TOO.

— Rajnikant Puranik

To the fond memory of my late parents

Shrimati Shakuntala

Shri Laxminarayan Puranik

Thanks to

Devbala Puranik, Manasi and Manini

for encouragement and support

A NOTE ON CITATIONS & BIBLIOGRAPHY

Citations are given as super-scripts in the text, such as {Azad/128}.

CITATION SYNTAX & EXAMPLES

{Source-Abbreviation/Page-Number}

e.g. {Azad/128} = Azad, Page 128

{Source-Abbreviation/Volume-Number/Page-Number}

e.g. {CWMG/V-58/221} = CWMG, Volume-58, Page 221

{Source-Abbreviation} … for URLs (articles on the web), and for digital

books (including Kindle-Books), that are searchable, where location or

page-number may not be given.

e.g. {VPM2} , {URL15}

{Source-Abbreviation/Location-Number}… for Kindle Books

e.g. {VPM2} , {VPM2/L-2901}

{VPM2/438/L-2901} = Page 438 for Printed/Digital Book; and L-2901 for

Location 2901 for a Kindle Book. Applicable, where citations from both

type of books given.

Example from Bibliography Table at the end of this Book

Azad B Maulana Abul Kalam Azad— India Wins Freedom .

Orient Longman. New Delhi. 2004

CWMG D,

Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. 1 to 98.

http://gandhiserve.org/e/cwmg/cwmg.htm

URL15 U Article ‘Nehru vs Patel: Ideological Rift, Hardly a

Trivial One. Rakesh Sinha, Sunday Express. 10-Nov-

2013.

www.pressreader.com/india/sunday-

express8291/20131110/282033324959792

VPM2 K,

V.P. Menon— The Transfer of Power in India . Orient

Longman. Chennai. (1957) 1997.

books.google.co.in/books?id=FY5gI7SGU20C

The second column above gives the nature of the source : B=paper Book,

D=Digital Book/eBook other than Kindle, K=Kindle eBook, U=URL of

Document/Article on Web, W=Website, Y=YouTube.

1. PRE-INDEPENDENCE BLUNDERS

Not many blunders are listed under Nehru’s ‘Pre-independence Blunders’

below, compared to his ‘Post-independence Blunders’ later, because in the

former period Nehru was not fully in-charge. There was Mahatma Gandhi

on top, and there were many other leaders of stature, to keep him in check.

Despite that, whenever Nehru held an official position bestowing him with

some discretion, and an opportunity presented itself,...

Blunder–1 :

USURPING CONGRESS PRESIDENTSHIP IN 1929

Jawaharlal Nehru was given an unfair leg up on Sardar Patel in 1929 by

Gandhi, and made President of the Congress, despite the following facts

that overwhelmingly made Sardar the deserving candidate.

Patel had led the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928 whose resounding success

had made him a national hero, and bestowed on him the title Sardar . The

Bardoli Satyagraha was the first successful practical implementation of the

Gandhian non-violent technique involving the rural masses on the ground.

Nehru lacked such credentials.

Besides, Sardar Patel was much senior to Jawaharlal, and a larger number

of Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs: legal body to elect President) had

recommended him over Jawaharlal. Yet, Gandhi, most unjustly and

undemocratically, asked Patel to withdraw! Gandhi thereby tried to

establish an unjust pecking order where Jawaharlal came before Patel.

Netaji Subhas Bose had subsequently written: “The general feeling in

Congress circles was that the honour should go to Sardar Vallabhbhai

Patel.”{RG5/322} Acharya Kripalani had remarked that Gandhi’s reasons for

preferring Jawaharlal “were personal rather than political…the two were

emotionally attached to each other, deny it though they may”.{RG/183}

Jawaharlal’s father Motilal had a major role to play in Jawaharlal’s

undeserved elevation. Motilal was the Congress President in 1928. He

desired that his position be inherited by his son. Subsequent to Patel’s

Bardoli win, Motilal wrote to Gandhi on 11 July 1928:

“I am quite clear that the hero of the hour is Vallabhbhai, and the least we

can do is to offer him the crown [make him President of the Congress].

Failing him, I think that under all the circumstances Jawahar would be

the best choice.”{RG2/L-2984}

Motilal actively canvassed for Jawaharlal with Gandhi. Nepotism and

“fight” for freedom went together: Nehrus from Motilal downwards ensured

their family was well taken care of; and that it came first, ahead of the

nation! In the long run, the nation paid heavily for Motilal’s brazen

nepotism, exemplarily emulated by his dynasty.

The presidentship during 1929-30 was particularly significant: the one

who became president was likely to be Gandhi’s successor; and he was also

to declare the goal of the Congress as “purn swaraj” or complete

independence (so late!!).

Jawaharlal was also favoured by Gandhi with an unprecedented second

consecutive term in 1930, then another two terms in 1936 and 1937, topped

by the critical term in 1946 (Blunder#6)! Such privilege was not accorded

to any other leader—even Sardar Patel was made President only once for

one year!

The Old Man’s weakness for the westernized Nehru over the home-spun

fellow Gujarati [Patel] was yet another aspect of “Swadeshi” Gandhi’s self-

contradictory personality. How Jawaharlal managed to become the

“spiritual son” of Gandhi is a mystery. Wrote MN Roy in “The Men I Met”:

“It can reasonably be doubted if Nehru could have become the hero of

Indian Nationalism except as the spiritual son of Gandhi…To purchase

popularity, Nehru had to suppress his own personality…”{Roy/11}

Blunder–2 :

SETTING JINNAH ON PATH TO PAKISTAN

Before the 1936-37 provincial elections, the Congress did not expect to

get enough seats to form a government on its own in UP. That was because

of the other parties in the fray who had strong backing of landlords and

influential sections. So as to be able to form a government, it had planned

for a suitable coalition with the Muslim League. So that the Muslim League

got enough seats for a coalition to be successful, Rafi Ahmad Kidwai of the

Congress (who had been private secretary of Motilal Nehru, and after

Motilal’s death, a principal aide of Jawaharlal Nehru) had persuaded, jointly

with Nehru, several influential Muslims, like Khaliq-uz-Zaman (third in the

AIML hierarchy after Jinnah and Liaqat Ali Khan) and Nawab Mohammad

Ismail Khan, who had the potential to win, to fight the elections on behalf

of the Muslim League—as Muslims fighting on behalf of the Muslim

League had better chances of winning. They fought and won. But, after the

elections, when the Congress found it could form the government on its

own, without the help of the Muslim League, it began to put unreasonable

conditions.{DD/181-83}

To Jinnah’s proposal of inclusion of two Muslim League Ministers in the

UP cabinet, Nehru, who was the Congress President then, and was also

looking after the UP affairs, put forth an amazing, arrogant condition: the

League legislators must merge with the Congress! Specifically, the terms

sought to be imposed, inter alia, by Nehru–Azad were:

“The Muslim League group in the UP Legislature shall cease to function

as a separate group. The existing members of the Muslim League party in

the United Provinces Assembly shall become part of the Congress

Party… The Muslim League Parliamentary Board in the United

Provinces will be dissolved, and no candidates will thereafter be set up

by the said Board at any by-election…”{Shak/187}

The above humiliating condition that was the death warrant for the

League was naturally rejected by Jinnah.{Gill/179-80}

In Bombay, with the Congress Chief minister designate BG Kher willing

to induct one Muslim League minister in the cabinet in view of lack of

absolute majority of the Congress, and the fact that the Muslim League had

done well in Bombay in the Muslim pockets, Jinnah sent a letter in the

connection to Gandhi. Gandhi gave a curiously mystical and elliptically

negative reply to Jinnah on 22 May 1937:

“Mr. Kher has given me your message. I wish I could do something, but I

am utterly helpless. My faith in [Hindu-Muslim] unity is as bright as

ever; only I see no daylight out of the impenetrable darkness and, in such

distress, I cry out to God for light...”{CWMG/Vol-71/277}

Jinnah then wanted to meet Gandhi; but Gandhi advised him to rather

meet Abul Kalam Azad, by whom he said he was guided in such matters.

Rebuffed and humiliated Jinnah then decided to show Congress-Nehru-

Gandhi their place. The incident led other Muslim leaders also to believe

that a majority Congress government would always tend to ride rough-shod

over the Muslim interests. It is claimed that, thanks to this imbroglio, the

badly hurt pride of the Muslims led them to move away from the Congress

and quickly gravitate towards the Muslim League, and ultimately to

separation.

The incident actually proved a blessing-in-disguise for Jinnah and the

Muslim League for they realised their politics needed to be mass-based to

counter the Congress. Membership fee for the AIML was dramatically

dropped to just two-annas. There was a huge move to increase membership

among the Muslim masses, and it paid rich dividends: the membership

dramatically rose from a few thousand to well over half a million! Jinnah

told his followers that he had done enough of begging the Congress in the

past; he would see to it now that the Congress begged of him.{RZ/70-71}

The humiliated Muslim League aspirants Khaliq-uz-Zaman and Nawab

Mohammad Ismail Khan, whose ambitions were thwarted by the Congress

and Nehru, thereafter became the pillars of Muslim reaction and played a

critical role in swinging the Muslim opinion in favour of partition and

Pakistan. The British were only too glad at the development. The Secretary

of State Birkenhead wrote to the Viceroy: “I have placed my highest and

most permanent hopes in the eternity of the communal situation.”{Muld/42}

It was unwise of the Congress and Nehru not to show a little generosity

towards the League. Reportedly, Sardar Patel and GB Pant were willing for

a coalition with the Muslim League as per the pre-election understanding,

but Nehru, in his “wisdom” and hubris, decided to act arrogant, and led the

way for the ultimate parting of ways with Jinnah and the Muslim League,

and for Partition and Pakistan—Nehru was the Congress President in 1936

and 1937. Jinnah’s bitter reaction on 26 July 1937 to Nehru’s unjust act

was:

“What can I say to the busybody President [Nehru] of the Congress? He

[Nehru] seems to carry the responsibility of the whole world on his

shoulders and must poke his nose into everything except minding his

own business.”{DD/181-82}

The fissure caused by Nehru’s impetuosity was never healed. There is an

opinion that had the Congress been accommodating towards the AIML

post-1937 elections, AIML may not have hurtled forward towards Partition

and Pakistan. Besides, it would have prevented counterfactual speculations.

Wrote Maulana Azad:

“...I have nevertheless to say with regret that this [‘Blunder#7’] was not

the first time that he [Nehru] did immense harm to the national cause. He

had committed an almost equal blunder in 1937 when the first elections

were held under the Government of India Act [of 1935]{Azad/170} …

“Jawaharlal’s action gave the Muslim League in the UP a new lease of

life. All students of Indian politics know that it was from the UP that the

League was reorganised. Mr Jinnah took full advantage of the situation

and started an offensive which ultimately led to Pakistan{Azad/171} …

“The [Nehru’s] mistake of 1937 was bad enough. The mistake of 1946

[of Nehru: ‘Blunder#7’] proved even more costly.”{Azad/172}

Wrote MC Chagla: “To my mind, one of the most potent causes which

ultimately led to the creation of Pakistan was what happened in Uttar

Pradesh [United Provinces in 1937]. If Jawaharlal Nehru had agreed to a

coalition ministry and not insisted on the representative of the Muslim

League signing the Congress pledge, perhaps Pakistan would never have

come about. I remember Jawaharlal telling me that Khaliquz Zaman [to

whom Nehru had denied a berth in the UP cabinet in 1937] was one of his

greatest and dearest friends, and yet he led the agitation for Pakistan…

Uttar Pradesh was the cultural home of the Muslims. Although they were in

a minority in the State, if Uttar Pradesh had not gone over to the cause of

separation, Pakistan would never have become a reality.”{MCC/81-2}

Blunder–3 :

SCORING SELF-GOAL—MINISTRY RESIGNATIONS, 1939

GOOD SHOW BY THE CONGRESS IN 1936-37 PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS

In the 1936-37 provincial elections in 11 provinces, the Congress won an

absolute majority in 5 (UP, Bihar, Madras, CP (Central Provinces) and

Orissa), and emerged as the largest party in 4 (Bombay, Bengal, Assam and

NWFP). The Congress ministries were formed in a total of 8 provinces.

They were headed (called Premiers) by Govind Ballabh Pant in UP,

Shrikrishna Sinha in Bihar, NB Khare in CP, BG Kher in Bombay, Rajaji in

Madras. Bishwanath Das in Orissa, Gopinath Bardoloi in Assam, and Dr

Khan Sahib in NWFP.

On the other hand, the Muslim League’s show was poor. It secured less

than 5% of the Muslim votes. It won a mere 6% (108/1585) of total seats.

Its share (108/(372+108=480)) in the Muslim seats was also low: 22.5%. It

failed to form a government on its own in any province. This rankled with

Jinnah and the AIML, and also with the British, who didn’t want the

Congress to get powerful.

GOOD PERFORMANCE OF CONGRESS MINISTRIES DURING 1937-39

The hard-won (thanks mainly to the efforts of Sardar Patel) Congress

ministries in the provinces since 1937, under the strict vigilance of Patel,

had begun to perform better than expected. To guide and coordinate the

activities of the provincial governments, a central control board known as

the Parliamentary Sub-Committee was formed, with Sardar Patel, Maulana

Abul Kalam Azad and Rajendra Prasad as members. A number of measures

in the interest of the general public had been taken. Many Congress

ministers set an example in plain living. They reduced their own salaries.

They made themselves easily accessible to the common people. In a very

short time, a very large number of ameliorative legislations were pushed

through in an attempt to fulfil many of the promises made in the Congress

election manifesto.

Emergency powers acquired by the provincial governments through the

Public Safety Acts and the like were repealed. Bans on illegal political

organizations such as the Hindustan Seva Dal and Youth Leagues, and on

political books and journals were lifted. All restrictions on the press were

removed. Securities taken from newspapers and presses were refunded and

pending prosecutions were withdrawn. The blacklisting of newspapers for

purposes of government advertising was given up. Confiscated arms were

returned and forfeited arms licenses were restored. In the Congress

provinces, police powers were curbed and the reporting of public speeches

and the shadowing of political workers by CID agents stopped. Another big

achievement of the Congress Governments was their firm handling of the

communal riots. Rajaji’s premiership of Madras during 1937-39 was

brilliant.

BRITAIN DECLARED WAR (WW-II) ON BEHALF OF INDIA

The German–Soviet Non-aggression Pact, also called the Molotov–

Ribbentrop Pact, or the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was signed between Nazi

Germany and the Soviet Union in Moscow on 23 August 1939, in the

presence of Stalin. Soon after, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded

Poland (Soviet Union did so on 17 September 1939). In response, Britain

declared war against Germany two days later—on 3 September 1939. On

the same day, the Viceroy of India, Linlithgow, also announced that India,

along with Britain, had joined the war (WW-II).

IN PROTEST, NEHRU & SOCIALISTS FORCE CONGRESS MINISTRIES TO RESIGN

The Congress had expected to be consulted by the British before

declaring war on behalf of India. The AICC had declared in May 1939 that

the Congress would oppose any attempt to impose a war on India without

the consent of its people. Yet, the British authorities just didn’t bother. The

Congress felt rebuffed and enraged. It also demonstrated that the British

considered the Gandhian ‘threat’ as no threat. They knew that the Gandhian

non-violence was an insurance against any real problem for the Raj.

In protest against the British-India declaring war without consulting the

Congress, the CWC meeting at Wardha on 22-23 October 1939 decided not

to co-operate with the British in the war (WW-II). The move was spear-

headed by Nehru and the socialists, who also advocated that the Congress

Provincial Governments resign by the month-end in protest. Patel and

Gandhi were not in favour of non-cooperation with the British in the war,

and of the ministries resigning; but Nehru & Co—the socialists—insisted

upon it. The resignations were effectively a victory of the Congress Left.

RESIGNATIONS: A BIG NEHRUVIAN BLUNDER

Nehru Driven by the Soviet Line, Opposite to Gandhi’s Line

Nehru’s world-view was Marxist-Communist (‘Blunder#106,107’), as

was obvious from his books and speeches, and he not only always tended to

favour the Soviet Union, he did so even where the position of the Soviet

Union was indefensible—effectively, Nehru was a Soviet-addict.

Wrote Sita Ram Goel:

“It could, therefore, be logically expected that once Britain and France

made up their mind to fight the Fascist Powers, the Congress would be

prepared to cooperate with them. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi drew this

conclusion when, immediately after the Second World War broke out in

Europe, he advised the Congress to give unconditional moral support

to the British Government of India. Writes Dr Pattabhi Sitaramayya:

‘Gandhi was of the view that we must offer our moral support, allow the

ministries to function and he had the confidence that through the

ministries, he could manoeuvre a declaration of Poorna Swaraja or

Dominion Status.’”{SRG2/149-50}

“But Mahatma Gandhi was not aware that Pandit Nehru had committed

the Congress to an anti-fascist faith not because he linked prospects of

India's freedom with that faith but because his Soviet mentors had at that

time laid the line that way. Had the Soviet Union joined the anti-fascist

war against the Fascist Powers, he would have felt no difficulty in

advocating cooperation with her British ally, as he did at a later date

[when Soviet Union joined the Allies in 1941]. But the Soviet Union was

now an ally of Nazi Germany [1939-41], and the Comintern apparatus

everywhere had characterised the War as an ‘Imperialist War’. The

Comintern had also invited the ‘people’ in Western countries as well as

in the colonies of those countries to convert the ‘imperialist war’ into a

‘civil war’ or a ‘war of liberation’ on the pattern advocated by Lenin in

1914-18. It was, therefore, not at all possible for Pandit Nehru to

advocate cooperation with the British Government of India.”{SRG2/150}

It is worth noting that being more a socialist and a communist

sympathiser than an “internationalist”, or an independent or a nationalist

thinker, Nehru changed his tune soon after Russia joined the war on the side

of Britain, and against Nazis in 1941.

Resignations of Congress Ministries

Under pressure from Nehru&Co, the Congress Ministries resigned in

November 1939. It was politics of futile gesture—a big blunder; a political

suicide. Wrote Balraj Krishna:

“Yet, he [Sardar Patel] seemed to be in agreement with Gandhi insofar as

the continuance of the Congress Ministries was concerned. This was

typical of him as the party boss and as an administrator, who saw obvious

political gains in holding on to power. Linlithgow's thinking tallied with

Patel's. He had written to the King that 'Jinnah had become alarmed by

the defection of a growing number of Muslims from the Muslim League

to the Congress', because the Ministers could help their friends and

'inconvenience their opponents’. Such defections, however probable,

could not have taken place because of the Congress giving up power in

the provinces. The Editor of The Hindu, K. Srinavasan,… 'blamed Nehru

for "the dreadful blunder" of withdrawing the provincial Ministers from

office.'”{BK/199-200}

“The withdrawal was a triumph for the Congress Left—a triumph which

had serious political repercussions. It threw the Congress into wilderness

and gave Jinnah absolute freedom to play a game that strengthened his

position with the British and helped him, in the end, get Pakistan. The

inappropriateness of the resignations lay in their being most inopportune

and untimely, especially when Linlithgow had formed a favourable

opinion of the Congress leaders and the Congress as a party. He

considered the latter to be ‘the only one worthy of the name, and

certainly the only one possessing an active and widespread organisation

in the constituencies’. It was an achievement due to Patel's effective

Chairmanship of the Congress Parliamentary Board. In Patel, Linlithgow

had found ‘a sense of humour, a shrewd and active brain and a strong

personality’, and Patel clearly saw the point about avoiding speculative

hypothesis as a basis of argument.”{BK/199-200}

The ill-advised action of Nehru&Co was like giving up all the gains of

the 1937-elections; and passing them on to the then defeated Muslim

League. While for the Congress it was self-emasculation that greatly

weakened it and drastically slashed its bargaining position, throwing it into

wilderness, for the British and for Jinnah the Congress Ministries’

resignations were “good riddance”.

Blunder–4 :

LEG-UP TO JINNAH & THE MUSLIM LEAGUE (AIML)

Resignation of the Congress ministries in 1939 (Blunder#3 above),

thanks to Nehru&Co, was welcomed both by Jinnah and the British

authorities. Jinnah couldn’t help calling it the ‘Himalayan Blunder ’ of the

Congress, and was determined to take full advantage of it. Jinnah and the

Muslim League went to the extent of calling upon all Muslims to celebrate

22 December 1939 as the “Deliverance Day ”—deliverance from the

“misrule” of the Congress. Thanks to Nehru’s blunder, the stars of the

Muslim League began to rise. 1939-onwards Muslim League was on the

ascendency, even as the clout of the Congress eclipsed.

The worst effect of the resignations was on NWFP. This overwhelmingly

Muslim province (95%) was ruled in conjunction with the Congress by the

Khan brothers. It was a show-piece for the Congress, and a negation of all

that Jinnah and the Muslim League stood for—majority Muslim province

under the Congress. Resignation by the ruling Congress-Khan brothers was

god-sent for Jinnah and the British. Both quickly manipulated to install a

Muslim League government, and make popular the divisive agenda. In the

Pakistan that the British had planned inclusion of NWFP was a must, and

that was only possible if the Congress and the Khan-brothers were

dislodged. Linlithgow did all he could to install a Muslim League

government in NWFP, including meeting Jinnah personally{Sar/48} , and

instructing the then Punjab Governor Sir George Cunningham to render all

necessary assistance to Jinnah{Sar/49} . Viceroy Linlithgow had been playing a

dangerous and irresponsible divisive game in India’s North-West,

particularly in Punjab and NWFP that ultimately led to the Partition

carnage.

It is worth noting that Nehru and the Congress were unnecessarily too

obsessed with the Centre and the Central legislature, where Jinnah was able

to play a wrecker. Had the Congress continued in its ministries, and had it

played its cards well in the provinces in the Muslim-majority areas, they

could have derailed Jinnah. The Unionist Party headed by Sikandar Hyat

Khan that ruled Punjab was a Muslim-Hindu-Sikh coalition. The Krishak

Proja Party headed by Fazlul Huq, a nationalist Muslim, dominated Bengal.

Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah had formed a Hindu-Muslim coalition in

Sind, independent of the Muslim League. If the Congress had intelligently

coordinated its efforts with these parties, it could have sidelined Jinnah.

But, what to speak of doing that ground work and strengthening its ties with

the non-Muslim-League Muslim parties, the Congress itself chose to get

irrelevant.

Congress opposition to the British declaration of World War-II on behalf

of India, its non-cooperation with the British in that regard, and the

unconditional, whole-hearted support extended to the British by Jinnah and

the Muslim League ensured the rise of the Muslim League and the gradual

eclipse of the Congress, so much so that thereafter it were the British,

Jinnah and the Muslim League who dictated the terms of Independence,

Partition and Pakistan. Wrote VP Menon in ‘The Transfer of Power in

India’ on the Indian National Congress (INC):

“Had it not resigned from the position of vantage in the Provinces the

course of Indian history might have been different… By resigning, it

showed a lamentable lack of foresight and political wisdom. There was

little chance of its being put out of office; the British Government would

surely have hesitated to incur the odium of dismissing ministries which

had the overwhelming support of the people. Nor could it have resisted

an unanimous demand for a change at the Centre, a demand which would

have been all the more irresistible after the entry of Japan into the war. In

any case, it is clear that, but for the resignation of the Congress, Jinnah

and the Muslim League would never have attained the position they

did…”{VPM2/152/L-2901}

Blunder–5 :

ASSAM’S SECURITY COMPROMISED

With the annexation of Assam in 1826, the British brought in the

peasantry from the over-populated East-Bengal for tea plantation and other

purposes. The Muslim League, in order to dominate the predominantly non-

Muslim Assam and the Northeast, and make it yet another Muslim-majority

region, strategized back in 1906 in its conference at Dacca to somehow

increase the Muslim population in Assam, and exhorted the East-Bengal

Muslims to migrate and settle in Assam. The fact of large-scale migration

was also noted in the Census report of 1931. Congress leaders Bordoloi,

Medhi and others raised this serious issue of migration, but did not get due

support from the Congress leadership at the Centre.

In the 1930s and later, when the Muslims of East Bengal (now

Bangladesh) began migrating to Brahmaputra valley in Assam for

livelihood, pooh-poohing the grave warnings from sane quarters, pseudo-

secular, naive Nehru made an irresponsible statement: “Nature abhors

vacuum, meaning where there is open space how can one prevent people

from settling there?” Savarkar responded with his masterly prediction:

“Nature also abhors poisonous gas. The migration of such large numbers of

Muslims in Assam threatened not just the local culture but would also prove

to be a national security problem for India on its north-east frontier.”

In 1938, when a Muslim League-headed coalition fell in Assam, Netaji

Subhas Bose favoured a bid by the Congress to form a government. Several

Congress leaders were opposed to the idea, particularly Maulana Azad.

Sardar Patel backed Subhas Bose fully; and finally a Congress ministry led

by Gopinath Bordoloi took office. With Bordoloi in office it was hoped that

the Muslim migrations would be stemmed, and the game of the Muslim

League would be defeated.

However, thanks to the unwise move of Nehru and his left supporters, the

Congress ministries in the provinces resigned in 1939 (Blunder#3 above).

This forced Gopinath Bordoloi to also resign in Assam, although Netaji

Subhas Bose and Sardar Patel wanted the Bordoloi government to continue.

This was God-sent, rather Allah-sent, for the Muslim League. Pro-British

Sir Syed Mohammad Saadulla of the Muslim League, from whom Bordoloi

had wrested power, again took over. With the Congress in limbo on account

of the unwise surrender of power in the provinces (thanks to Nehru&Co),

followed by the imprisonment of its leadership in 1942 Quit India, Saadulla

ruled uninterrupted for the next seven years shoring up the Muslim base in

Assam.

Saadulla brought in a Land Settlement Policy in 1941 that allowed

immigrants (Muslims) from East Bengal to pour into Assam, and hold as

much as 30 bighas for each homestead. He boasted to Liaquat Ali Khan that

through his policies he had managed to quadruple the Muslim population in

the lower four districts of the Assam Valley. In short, the demographic

position became much worse in Assam thanks to the wrong decision of

Nehru.

The initial British Plan of 1946 for the Indian Independence clubbed

Assam and Bengal together in Group-C. Such an inclusion would have had

the consequence of Assamese being in a minority, to be overruled into

ultimately being absorbed in East-Pakistan. Sensing this ominous

possibility, Bordoloi opposed being clubbed into Group-C, contrary to what

Nehru had agreed to. With Nehru remaining unamenable, Bordoloi started

mass agitation. He fought the Muslim League’s effort to include Assam and

other parts of the Northeast Region (NER) in East Pakistan. The Congress

Party at the national level, led by Nehru, would have acquiesced to the

Muslim League had it not been for a revolt by Bordoloi, backed by the

Assam unit of the Congress Party and supported by Mahatma Gandhi and

the Assamese public.

Blunder–6 :

NEHRU’S UNDEMOCRATIC ELEVATION AS THE FIRST PM

RACE FOR INDIA’S FIRST PM : SARDAR PATEL AS THE CLEAR CHOICE

Post 1945, with the increasing hopes of the imminence of India’s

independence, all patriots looked forward to having a strong, assertive,

competent, decisive, no-nonsense person as India’s first prime minister,

who would bring back the lost glory of India, and turn it into a modern,

prosperous nation. Iron Man Sardar Patel was the clear choice, being a cut

much above the rest. And, nobody looked forward to having some

undemocratic, indecisive, clueless leader to mess up a hard-won freedom

after centuries.

The Congress Party had practically witnessed Sardar Patel as a great

executor, organizer and leader, with his feet on the ground. Sardar had

demonstrated his prowess in the various movements and assignments,

including that in the Nagpur Agitation of 1923; the Borsad Satyagraha of

1923; excellent management of the Ahmedabad Municipality during 1924-

27; tackling of the Ahmedabad Floods of 1927; the Bardoli Satyagraha of

1928 that earned him the title of "Sardar"; the Dandi March and the Salt

Satyagraha of 1930; successful management of elections for the Congress

during 1934-37; preparation, conduct and management of Haripura session

of the Congress in 1938 on a massive scale; building up of the party

machine; role in preparation for the Quit India Movement; and premier

leadership role 1945 onwards.

Patel’s achievements were far in excess of Nehru’s, and all Congress

members and the country knew it. Sardar was also far better academically,

and far wiser than Nehru. Like Nehru, Sardar Patel too had studied in

England. But, while Nehru’s father financed all his education, Sardar

financed his own education in England, through his own earnings! While

Nehru could manage to scrape through in only a poor lower second-division

in England, Sardar Patel topped in the first division!

Professionally too, Sardar was a successful lawyer, while Nehru was a

failure. Sardar had a roaring practice, and was the highest paid lawyer in

Ahmedabad, before he left it all on a call by Gandhi; while Nehru was

dependent upon his father for his own upkeep, and that of his family.

Besides, Sardar was a great administrator. Wrote Balraj Krishna:

“Common talk among the members of the Indian Civil Service post-

Independence used to be: ‘If the dead body of the Sardar were stuffed

and placed on a chair, he could still rule.’”{BK/xi}

Based on the ground-level practical experience since 1917, it could be

said with certainty in 1946 that Nehru was no match for Sardar for the

critical post of the prime minister. Of course, Nehru as PM in practice

confirmed beyond a shred of doubt that it should have been Sardar, and not

him, who should have been the first PM of India—as this book amply

brings out.

LEGAL PROCEDURE FOR THE ELECTION

Whoever became the president of the Congress in 1946 would have also

become the first prime minister of India, hence the presidential election was

critical. As per the laid down procedure in practice for many decades, only

the Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs) were the authorised bodies to

elect a president. There were 15 such PCCs They were supposed to send

their nomination to the Congress Working Committee (CWC). The person

who received maximum nominations was elected as President. There being

15 PCCs, at least 8 PCCs had to nominate a specific individual for him or

her to gain the majority to become president. In 1946, the last date of

nominations for the post of the president was 29 April 1946.

RESULT OF THE ELECTION : SARDAR WON UNOPPOSED

The Congress Working Committee (CWC) met on 29 April 1946 to

consider the nominations sent by the PCCs. 12 of the 15 (80%) PCCs

nominated Sardar Patel{RG/370} ; and 3 PCCs out of the 15 (20%) did not

nominate anyone.{ITV} It therefore turned out to be a non-contest. Sardar

Patel was the only choice, and an undisputed choice, with not a single

opposition.

What was noteworthy was that on 20 April 1946, that is, nine days before

the last date of nominations of 29 April 1946, Gandhi had indicated his

preference for Nehru. Yet, not a single PCC nominated Nehru!

HIJACKING OF THE ELECTION BY NEHRU–GANDHI

Looking to the unexpected (unexpected by Gandhi) development, Gandhi

prodded Kripalani to convince a few CWC members to propose Nehru’s

name for the party president. Gandhians like Kripalani slavishly went by

what their guru, the Mahatma, directed. Kripalani promptly and

unquestioningly complied: He got a few to propose Nehru’s name. Finding

this queer development, Sardar Patel enquired with Gandhi, and sought his

advice. Gandhi counselled him to withdraw his name. Patel complied

promptly, and didn’t raise any question. That cleared the way for Nehru.

The “democratic” Nehru didn’t feel embarrassed at his and Gandhi’s blatant

hijacking of the election, and shamelessly accepted his own nomination.

Said Kripalani later: “Sardar did not like my intervention.”{RG/371} Years

later Acharya Kripalani had told Durga Das:

“All the P.C.C.s sent in the name of Patel by a majority and one or two

proposed the names of Rajen Babu in addition, but none that of

Jawaharlal. I knew Gandhi wanted Jawaharlal to be President for a year,

and I made a proposal myself [at Gandhi’s prodding] saying ‘some Delhi

fellows want Jawaharlal’s name’. I circulated it to the members of the

Working Committee to get their endorsement. I played this mischief. I

am to blame. Patel never forgave me for that. He [Sardar Patel] was a

man of will and decision. You saw his face. It grew year by year in power

and determination…”{DD/229}

NEHRU’S OBDURACY

Finding none had recommended Nehru, Gandhi, reportedly, did tell

Nehru: “No PCC has put forward your name…only [a few members of] the

Working Committee has.”{RG/371} Nehru, however, responded with complete

silence to this pregnant remark.{RG/371} Despite his grand pretentions of

Gandhi as his father figure, and he being his son, chela and follower, Nehru

remained silently defiant and let it be known to Gandhi he would not play

second fiddle to anyone. It appears that all the “sacrifice” for the nation by

Motilal and his son was geared to ultimately grab power for the Nehru

dynasty! It has even been claimed that Nehru tried blackmail: he threatened

to split the Congress on the issue.

Somebody asked Gandhi why he favoured Nehru. Reportedly, Gandhi’s

reason was he wanted both Nehru and Patel together to lead the nation, but

while Nehru would not work under Sardar Patel, he knew that in the

national interest he could persuade Sardar Patel to work under Nehru, as

Sardar would not defy him.{ITV} What Gandhi said amounts to this: that

Sardar Patel, even though senior and more experienced, and backed by

majority, was patriotic enough to work under Nehru in the national interest,

if so prodded by Gandhi; Nehru, junior, less experienced, and not backed by

a single PCC, wanted only to become PM, and was not patriotic enough to

work under Patel, in the national interest, even if persuaded by Gandhi!

Durga Das recounted the following:

“I asked Gandhi… He [Gandhi] readily agreed that Patel would have

proved a better negotiator and organiser as Congress President, but he

felt Nehru should head the Government. When I asked him how he

reconciled this with his assessment of Patel’s qualities as a leader, he

laughed and said: ‘Jawaharlal is the only Englishman in my camp…

[then, why talk of swadeshi and swaraj!] Jawaharlal will not take second

place. He is better known abroad than Sardar and will make India play a

role in international affairs [Why not make him Foreign Minister then?

Although, Nehru made a mess of the foreign policy—pl. see

Blunder#48–58]. Sardar will look after the country’s affairs. They will be

like two oxen yoked to the government cart. One will need the other and

both will pull together.’”{DD/230}

NEHRU–GANDHI ACT : WHY GROSSLY IMPROPER?

Gandhi’s actions must be judged in the background of his being a

“Mahatma”, and an “Apostle of Truth and Non-Violence”. As Gandhi had

himself stressed, “non-violence” didn’t have a narrow interpretation as just

lack of violence, but a broad interpretation where things like anger, illegal

and unjust acts also came within the broad definition of violence. What

Gandhi and Nehru manoeuvred was not only illegal, immoral and

unethical, but also against the interest of the nation. Here are the reasons for

the same:

(1) Illegality-1 : PCCs alone were authorised to elect the president. There

was nothing in the Congress constitution to permit that rule to be

overturned. How could Gandhi overrule what 15 PCCs had recommended?

On what legal basis? Gandhi’s action was illegal.

(2) Illegality-2 : Gandhi had resigned from the primary membership of

the Congress back in 1934 to devote himself to “constructive work” (Were

political work and fighting for freedom “destructive”?). Thereafter, he had

never rejoined the Congress. How could a non-member of the Congress like

Gandhi dictate who should be the president of the Congress, or even

participate in CWC meetings? Yet, another illegality.

(3) Unreasonable-1: Did Gandhi put on record his reasons for overruling

the recommendations of the PCCs? No.

(4) Unreasonable-2 : Did Gandhi put on record why Patel was not

suitable as the president, and hence the first PM, and why Nehru was a

better choice? No.

(5) Unreasonable-3 : Was there a proper and threadbare discussion in the

CWC on why Patel was not suited for the post, and therefore why the

recommendations of the PCCs should be ignored? And, why, instead, Nehru

should be chosen? No.

(6) Unreasonable-4 : If CWC was not convinced of the recommendations

of the PCCs, why didn’t it refer the matter back to the PCCs, and ask them

to re-submit their recommendations, with detailed reasoning? The decision

could have been postponed.

(7) Against National Interest-1 : How could responsibility of such critical

nature be assigned to a person without doubly ensuring that person’s

relative suitability through fair and democratic discussions among all CWC

members, and, of course, finally through voting.

(8) Against National Interest-2 : National interests demanded that the

choice of person was dictated not by personal biases, and diktats, but by

suitability, and mutual consensus, and the reasons should have been put on

record.

(9) Dictatorial & Undemocratic-1 : How could an individual like Gandhi

dictate who should or should not be the president, and hence the first PM?

And, if that was fine for the Congress, then why the sham of elections, and

votes of the PCCs?

(10) Dictatorial & Undemocratic-2 : What kind of freedom “fighters” we

had in the Gandhian Congress that they didn’t even assert their freedom

within the CWC, or show their guts against the slavery of Gandhi, and

voice their opinions? Was an individual Gandhi correct, and were the 15

PCCs wrong?

(11) Unethical-1 : Leave apart the legal and other aspects, was it ethical

and moral and truthful for Gandhi to do what he did? If indeed he thought

he was correct, and all others were wrong, the least that was expected from

him was to explain his logic and reasoning. Or, was he above all that? Do

what you want—no questions asked!

(12) Unethical-2 : How could a person being nominated for president,

and therefore as the first Indian PM, be so devoid of integrity, fair-play and

ethics as to blatantly be a party to the illegality of throwing the

recommendations of the PCCs into a dustbin, and allowing oneself to be

nominated?

(13) Unembarrassed : Did it not embarrass Nehru that he was usurping a

position undemocratically through blatantly unfair means? Did it behove a

future PM?

(14) Blot & Blunder : Overall, it was a blot on the working of the CWC,

and on the CWC members, and particularly Gandhi and Nehru, that they

could so brazenly commit such a blunder, which ultimately cost the nation

heavy.

REACTIONS OF STALWARTS ON THE IMPROPER ACT

“If Gandhi had his reasons for wanting Jawaharlal, the party had its for

wanting [Sardar] Patel, whom it saw, as Kripalani would afterwards say, as

‘a great executive, organizer and leader’, with his feet on the ground. The

party was conscious too of Sardar’s successful Quit India exertions, not

matched by Jawaharlal.”

—Rajmohan Gandhi {RG/370}

“I sent a paper round proposing the name of Jawaharlal… It was certain that

if Jawaharlal’s name had not been proposed, the Sardar would have been

elected as the President… The Sardar did not like my intervention. I have

since wondered if, as the General Secretary, I should have been

instrumental in proposing Jawaharlal’s name in deference to Gandhi’s

wishes in the matter… But who can forecast the future? On such seemingly

trivial accidents depends the fate of men and even of nations.”

—Acharya Kriplani {Krip/248-9}

“When we members of the Mahakoshal PCC preferred him [Patel] to Nehru

as Congress President, we had no intention of depriving Nehru of future

Premiership. The younger man had already been raised to the office of

Congress President thrice, and we therefore thought it just and proper that

Patel, the older man, should have at least a second chance [at Presidency,

and thus be the first PM].”

—DP Mishra {RG/372} {DPM/185-6}

“Gandhi has once again sacrificed his trusted lieutenant for the sake of the

glamorous Nehru.”

—Dr Rajendra Prasad {RG/371}

“...Taking all facts into consideration, it seemed to me that Jawaharlal

should be the new President [of Congress in 1946—and hence PM].

Accordingly, on 26 April 1946, I issues a statement proposing his name for

Presidentship... [Then] I acted according to my best judgement but the way

things have shaped since then has made me to realise that this was perhaps

the greatest blunder of my political life … My second mistake was that

when I decided not to stand myself I did not support Sardar Patel. We

differed on many issues but I am convinced that if he had succeeded me as

Congress President he would have seen that the Cabinet Mission Plan was

successfully implemented. He would have never committed the mistake of

Jawaharlal which gave Mr. Jinnah an opportunity of sabotaging the Plan. I

can never forgive myself when I think that if I had not committed these

mistakes, perhaps the history of the last ten years would have been

different.”

—Maulana Azad {Azad/162}

“When the independence of India was coming close upon us and Gandhiji

was the silent master of our affairs, he had come to the decision that

Jawaharlal, who among all the Congress leaders was the most familiar with

foreign affairs [although the Nehruvian years proved Nehru had made a

mess of the foreign policy and external security], should be the Prime

Minister of India, although he knew Vallabhbhai would be the best

administrator among them all… Undoubtedly it would have been better… if

Nehru had been asked to be the Foreign Minister and Patel made the Prime

Minister . I too fell into the error of believing that Jawaharlal was the more

enlightened person of the two... A myth had grown about Patel that he

would be harsh towards Muslims. That was a wrong notion but it was the

prevailing prejudice.”

—Rajaji, Swarajya, 27.11.1971 {RG3/443}

“Rajaji once unburdened his heart by publicly confessing to a wrong he had

done to Sardar Patel. I find myself in a similar situation: the dominant

feeling within me today is one of self-reproach, because during his lifetime,

I was not merely a critic, but an opponent of the Great Sardar.”

—Jayaprakash Narayan(JP), 1972 {BK/243}

“My own understanding is that if Sardar Patel had been Prime Minister

during that time and not Nehru, India would have gone further and faster.”

—Minoo Masani, ‘Against the Tide’ {MiM/195}

“The Sardar, as Congress’s strongman was called, was determined to stay

and solve whatever problems remained, rather than running away from

them. He had long viewed Nehru as a weak sister and often wondered why

Gandhi thought so highly of him.”

—Stanley Wolpert {Wolp2/377-8}

Rajaji took over from Mountbatten as the Governor-General (GG) of

India on 21 June 1948. When Nehru had suggested Rajaji’s name as the

GG, Rajaji had, in fact, written to Nehru that he (Nehru) should himself

take over as the Governor-General (GG), and make Sardar Patel the Prime

Minister. However, Nehru, vide his letter of 21 May 1948 to Rajaji, had

politely turned down the suggestion: “Please forgive me for the delay in

answering your telegram No.26-S dated 12th May 1948 in which you

suggested that I [Nehru] might be GG [Governor General]. Any suggestion

from you is worthy of thought, but I am afraid the present one is completely

impracticable from various points of view…”{JNSW/Vol-6/356}

Blunder–7 :

ABORTED ‘CABINET MISSION PLAN’ FOR UNITED INDIA

Prime Minister Clement Attlee told the House of Commons on 15 March

1946: “If India elects for independence she has a right to do so.” The Raj

had, at last, decided to pack up. A British Cabinet Mission comprising three

cabinet ministers—Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the Secretary of State for India,

Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade, and AV Alexander, the

First Lord of the Admiralty—arrived in India on 23 March 1946 at the

initiative of Attlee to discuss and plan for the Indian independence, and the

transfer of power to Indian leadership. Their discussions with the INC

(Indian National Congress) and the AIML (All-India Muslim League) did

not yield a common ground acceptable to both. So as to make a headway,

the Cabinet Mission unilaterally proposed a plan (“16 May Cabinet Mission

Plan”) announced by PM Attlee in the House of Commons on 16 May

1946, which, among other things, stated that independence would be

granted to a UNITED dominion of India, which would be a loose

confederation of provinces, and the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan

was turned down.

Thanks to Gandhi, Nehru had become the President of the Congress at

the end of April 1946, and hence the would be first PM (Blunder#6). Nehru

did a blunder at the very start of his Presidency. After the AICC ratification

of the CWC’s acceptance of the ‘May 16 Cabinet Mission Plan’ on 25 June

1946, Nehru remarked at the AICC on 7 July 1946: “…We are not bound

by a single thing except that we have decided to go into the Constituent

Assembly... When India is free, India will do just what she likes…”{Mak/83}

At a press conference in Mumbai three days later on 10 July 1946, he

declared that the Congress would be “completely unfettered by agreements

and free to meet all situations as they arise”{Azad/164} , and that “the central

government was likely to be much stronger than what the Cabinet Mission

envisaged.” Nehru also emphasised that the Congress regarded itself free to

change or modify the Cabinet Mission Plan as it thought best.{Azad/165}

How could Nehru talk of unilaterally changing what was mutually agreed

upon by the Congress, the Muslim League, and the British? What then was

the sanctity of the agreement? Nehru then made controversial remarks on

the groupings proposed in the May 16 Plan.

CONSEQUENCES OF NEHRU’S BLUNDER :

(A)JINNAH’S RENEWED CALL FOR PAKISTAN

(B)CALCUTTA CARNAGE, FOLLOWED BY NOAKHALI & OTHER RIOTS

As it was, Jinnah was under severe pressure from his colleagues and

supporters for having accepted the ‘May 16 Plan’, and thus giving up on an

independent Islamic State of Pakistan. Nehru’s statement gave Jinnah an

excuse to repudiate his earlier acceptance of the Plan, and demand a

separate state of Pakistan. Patel wrote to DP Mishra:

“Though President [Nehru] has been elected for the fourth time, he often

acts with childlike innocence, which puts us all in great difficulties quite

unexpectedly. You have good reason to be angry but we must not allow

our anger to get the better of ourselves... He has done many things

recently which have caused us great embarrassment. His action in

Kashmir, his interference in Sikh election to the Constituent Assembly,

his Press conference immediately after the AICC are all acts of emotional

insanity and it puts tremendous strain on us to set matters right…”{Mak/86}

Maulana Azad called Nehru’s act “one of those unfortunate events which

change the course of history .”{Azad/164} Maulana Azad wrote:

“…The Working Committee [CWC] accordingly met on 8 August [1946]

and reviewed the whole situation. I pointed out that if we wanted to save

the situation, we must make it clear that the statement of the Congress

President [Nehru] at the Bombay Press Conference [on 10 July 1946: pl.

see above] was his personal opinion… Jawaharlal argued that he had no

objection… but felt that it would be embarrassing to the organisation and

also to him personally…”{Azad/166}

The Congress tried its best to back-track on Nehru’s statement, and

issued statements reassuring its commitment on ‘May 16 Plan’. But, the

deed was done. Jinnah had got the excuse and the opportunity he wanted.

Wrote Maulana Azad, who had always favoured Nehru over Patel, in his

autobiography:

“...Taking all facts into consideration, it seemed to me that Jawaharlal

should be the new President [of Congress in 1946—and hence PM].

Accordingly, on 26 April 1946, I issues a statement proposing his name

for Presidentship... [Then] I acted according to my best judgement but

the way things have shaped since then has made me to realise that this

was perhaps the greatest blunder of my political life... My second

mistake was that when I decided not to stand myself, I did not support

Sardar Patel. We differed on many issues but I am convinced that if he

had succeeded me as Congress President he would have seen that the

Cabinet Mission Plan was successfully implemented. He would have

never committed the mistake of Jawaharlal which gave Mr. Jinnah an

opportunity of sabotaging the Plan. I can never forgive myself when I

think that if I had not committed these mistakes, perhaps the history of

the last ten years would have been different.”{Azad/162}

Jinnah and the AIML exploited Nehru’s faux pas to the hilt. Jinnah

contended with the British that Nehru’s remarks amounted to “a complete

repudiation” of ‘May 16 Plan’, and therefore he expected the British

government to invite him, rather than the Congress, to form a government.

In the absence of any action in that respect from the British government, the

Muslim League Council met at Bombay during 27–30 July 1946. Jinnah

took the extreme step: he got the Muslim League to revoke its acceptance of

the ‘May 16 Plan’, and gave a sinister call for the launch of “direct action to

achieve Pakistan”. Asking the qaum to observe 16 August 1946 as Direct

Action Day, Jinnah said on 30 July 1946:

“Today we bid goodbye to constitutional methods. Throughout, the

British and the Congress held a pistol in their hand, the one of authority

and arms and the other of mass struggle and non-cooperation. Today we

have also forged a pistol and are in a position to use it… We will have

either a divided India, or a destroyed India.”{BK/250}

The date 16 August 1946 was cleverly chosen. It was a Friday in the

month of Ramzan, on which the Muslims were likely to gather in large

numbers in mosques. Handbills exhorted:

“Let Muslims brave the rains and all difficulties and make the Direct

Action Day meeting a historic mass mobilization of the Millat.”

“Muslims must remember that it was in Ramazan that the Quran was

revealed. It was in Ramazan that the permission for jihad was granted by

Allah.”{PF/253}

This is from a pamphlet written by the Calcutta Mayor SM Usman:

“…By the grace of God, we are crores in India but through bad luck we

have become slaves of Hindus and the British. We are starting a Jehad in

your name in this very month of Ramzan… Give your helping hand in all

our actions—make us victorious over the Kaffirs—enable us to establish

the kingdom of Islam in India… by the grace of god may we build up in

India the greatest Islamic kingdom in the world…”{Mak/110}

HS Suhrawardy, the then Premier of Bengal, also held the portfolio of

Law & Order. He transferred Hindu police officers from all key posts prior

to 16 August, and ensured that while 22 of the 24 police stations had

Muslims as in-charge, the remaining 2 had Anglo-Indians. Further, to

mobilise large Muslim crowds, he declared 16 August as a public holiday.

Goondas and bad characters were mobilised by the AIML from within the

city and outside to create trouble. While Muslim leaders gave provocative

speeches on 16 August, Suhrawardy crossed all norms for a Premier and

told the gathered mammoth crowd that he had seen to it that the police and

military would not interfere… Suhrawardy even usurped the charge of the

Police Control Room on 16 August. He made sure that any Muslim arrested

for rioting was released immediately! However, after the initial heavy set

back and casualties, once the Hindus and Sikhs began to hit back causing

counter damage, something the AIML had not reckoned, Suhrawardy

promptly called in the army.{Mak/111-15}

The cumulative result of all the above was the Calcutta Carnage , the

Great Calcutta Killings , the worst communal riot instigated by the Muslim

League, that left 5,000 to 10,000 dead, 15,000 injured, and about one lakh

homeless! Like Dyer, the butcher of Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919,

Suhrawardy came to be known as ‘the butcher of Bengal’ and ‘the butcher

of Calcutta’.{Swa1}

Wrote Maulana Azad:

“Sixteen August 1946 was a black day not only for Calcutta but for the

whole of India…. This was one of the greatest tragedies of Indian history

and I have to say with the deepest of regret that a large part of the

responsibility for this development rests with Jawaharlal. His unfortunate

statement that the Congress would be free to modify the Cabinet Mission

Plan reopened the whole question of political and communal

settlement…”{Azad/170}

Nehru’s indiscretion put paid to the scheme of united India, precipitated

Jinnah’s call for Pakistan, and resulted in the ghastly Direct Action

described above.

Blunder–8 :

NWFP BLUNDER 1946

Congress had won the elections in NWFP in 1946, and Dr Khan Sahib

(Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan), brother of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, was

heading the ministry.

NWFP was another province the Muslim League was targeting along

with Bengal, Assam, Punjab, and Sind. Although the provincial government

of NWFP was in the hands of the Congress, the British Governor Olaf

Caroe, and the local British civil servants, were rabidly anti-Congress, and

pro-Muslim League. Why? They must have been instructed by the HMG to

back the Muslim League and ensure NWFP became part of Pakistan.

Incidentally, Sir Olaf Caroe was the person who authored “Wells of

Power: The Oilfields of South Western Asia, a Regional and Global Study”,

and persuasively wrote an article on Pakistan’s potential role in the Middle

East, and hence Pakistan’s strategic importance for the British. The British

were favouring Jinnah in their own interest. Like elsewhere, the Muslim

League, backed by the British, had been looking for and exploiting all

opportunities to discredit local Muslim leaders not aligned to the Muslim

League, defame them as pro-Hindu and anti-Muslim, and rouse the local

Muslim population against the Hindus.

Negligently, the Congress was doing little to counter the Muslim League

propaganda and violence. Instead, it gave ready excuses to the AIML to

indulge in its nefarious game when Nehru visited NWFP as the head of the

Interim Government, despite advise to the contrary by the NWFP Chief

Minister, Sardar Patel, and others. Nehru had the delusion he was very

popular—even among Muslims! The results were predictable. The situation

went worse for the local Congress Provincial Government, and the Muslim

League gained an upper hand, through communal rumour-mongering, and

false, skilful propaganda, backed by the British Governor, and the British

officers.

The height (or, rather, the low) of the British Governor Olaf Caroe’s

partisan role was reached when he tried to buy over NWFP Chief Minister

Dr Khan Sahib by assuring him that he would help him and his cabinet

colleagues continue as ministers in Pakistan if they severed their connection

with the “Hindu Congress”!

Jinnah gleefully looked upon Nehru’s visit as godsent, and managed to

paint Nehru and the Congress as unpopular among the Muslims of NWFP.

Blunder–9 :

MAKING JEWS OUT OF HINDU SINDHIS

BRUTAL ISLAMISATION OF THE HINDU CITADEL

Sindh is the home of the oldest civilization in the world—the Indus or

Sindhu Valley Civilization, highlighted by the excavations at Mohenjo-daro

—dating back to over 7000 BCE. The 3,180 km long Indus or Sindhu River

that originates near Lake Mansarovar in the Tibetan Plateau runs through

Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan, Western Punjab in Pakistan, and merges into the

Arabian Sea near the port city of Karachi in Sindh. Sindhu means water in

Sanskrit. Name India is derived from Indus. Sindhu river has a number of

tributaries. The Indus delta is mentioned in the Rig-Veda as Sapta Sindhu

(Hapta Hindu in the Iranian Zend Avesta), meaning ‘seven rivers’. Aryans

were indigenous to India, and hence to Sindh. The Aryan-Invasion Theory

has long since been conclusively debunked. Genetic studies also prove it.

Aryan-Dravidian divide was also a deliberate myth floated by the colonists

to serve their divide-and-rule and proselytization strategy.

Sindh was part of the empire of Dashrath (father of Shri Ram) during the

second Vedic period. After Shri Ram returned from vanvas defeating

Ravana, and became king, he gave the responsibility to his brother Bharat

to rule Sindh and Multan. Later, Gandhar (Kandahar) came under him. To

Bharat’s sons goes the credit of building the cities of Peshawar and Taxila.

Sindh was in good hands till the reign of Harshavardhana who ruled

India and Sindh during 606–647 CE, after which it went into weaker hands.

Buddhism, which vigorously taught non-violence, and which had its

presence in Sindh, too contributed to weakening its defence capabilities.

There were several hundred Buddhist Sanghas in Sindh at the time, and

many thousand Buddhist monks.

There were 15 attempted invasions of Sindh both from land and from sea

between 638 CE and 711 CE, but all were repulsed. Mohammed Bin Qasim

finally managed to plunder Sindh in 712 CE. He first attacked Debal, a

temple town near sea, in April 712 CE, won it, and then proceeded to defeat

the then king of Sindh, Dahir, which he did on 16 June 712 CE. Qasim and

his army plundered the riches of Dahir’s territories, and carted away the

booty to the court of Hajjaj in Baghdad. Many women were abducted to

Baghdad. All males over 17 years who refused to convert to Islam were

killed. But, finding there were too many Hindus to kill, they were granted

Dhimmi status upon regular payment of Jizya tax.

There is an interesting tale on the death of Mohammed Bin Qasim. As

per Chachnama , the Sindhi chronicle of the times, Qasim had sent the two

daughters of King Dahir as presents to the Khalifa for his harem. To avenge

their father’s death by Qasim, the daughters lied to the Khalifa that Qasim

had violated them before sending them. Enraged, the Khalifa ordered that

Qasim be wrapped and stitched in oxen hides, and brought to Syria. That

resulted in his death from suffocation. Upon discovering the sisters’

subterfuge, the Khalifa then ordered that the sisters be buried alive in a

wall.

Here is a telling statement from Ram Jethmalani in his foreword to the

book ‘The Sindh Story’ by KR Malkani: “The rest of the Indians across the

borders of Sindh were doubtless aware of the Arab conquest. It produced

not a ripple on the quiet waters of their placid existence. Life went on as

usual for them. There was neither a sense of territorial loss of a fellow

Hindu King, nor an understanding of the nature of the new (Islamic)

menace. The conquest of Sindh was dismissed as one more dacoity.

Afflicted by a debilitating pacifism, corroded by the idea of non-violence,

Indians seemed to have left it to professional soldiers to fight the invaders.

The rest of the neighbouring people lifted not one finger to defend the

Hindu homeland. Invaders who thirsted for the tremendous wealth of India

and its delicate and beautiful women, never met with the resistance that the

nation could have generated.”

WHY WAS SINDH NOT PARTITIONED?

Sindh came under the British in 1843, and was included as a part of the

Bombay Presidency. At the time of partition Sindh was a British India

province. It was bordered by Baluchistan and West Punjab (to the north),

and by the Princely States of Bahawalpur (northeast), Las Bela (west),

Kalat (west), and Khairpur (east: Sindh province surrounded it from three

sides). To its east was Rajasthan, and Gujarat was to its south.

As per the last census of 1931 before independence, Sindh’s population

was about 4.1 million, of which 73% were Muslims, 26% were Hindus, and

the remaining 1% were Christians, Sikhs, etc. Hindus were concentrated in

urban areas, while Muslims dominated the countryside. Hindus were in

absolute majority in four of Sindh’s five largest cities (for example,

Hyderabad was 70% Hindu), the exception being Karachi which was about

48% Muslim, 46% Hindu, and the remaining 6% non-Muslims belonged to

other religions—there also Muslims were not in absolute majority. Four

sub-districts to the southeast—Umarkot, Nagar Parkar, Mithi, and Chachro

—adjoining India had Hindu majority of 57%. Several nearby sub-districts

too had about 40–45% Hindu population.

Looking to the above position, Sindh could have been partitioned to give

space to the Hindu Sindhis. Southeast Sindh, plus certain adjoining areas to

compensate for Hindu Sindhis leaving other parts of Sindh, could have

been Hindu or Indian Sindh. Looking to sub-regional Hindu-Muslim ratio

of Sindh, the Congress could have tried to have part of Sindh carved out for

the Hindus. Considering that the Muslim League had secured only 46% of

the votes in Sindh, and the nationalist Muslims had polled three votes for

every four polled by the League, the Congress could have insisted for a

plebiscite in regions with Hindu dominance. However, the Congress

seemed to have abandoned Sindh as ‘a far off place’, like Chamberlain had

abandoned Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938 on the pretext that it was ‘a far

off country about which we know little’.

Khairpur was a Princely State adjoining India on the east, and

surrounded on the other three sides by Sindh. Its Mir had offered to Nehru

its merger with India. But, the offer was declined by Nehru, and India sent

their accession papers back to them! Had the offer been accepted, Khairpur

plus the adjoining Hindu-majority area could have been Hindu or Indian

Sindh.

Notwithstanding the above, nothing was done for the Hindu Sindhis.

They were deprived of their homeland of thousands of years. They became

the new Jews, although their history and homeland was several thousand

years older than those of the Jews and Israel. Why that injustice? Why

Gandhi, Nehru, and other Indian leaders did little for them?

One argument is that the Thar Desert formed a natural boundary between

India and Pakistan, and Sindh fell beyond the Thar Desert. That’s a

reasonable argument if India–Pakistan partition was done taking the natural

boundaries into account. But, that was not the case. Where was the natural

boundary between the East Punjab that became part of India, and the West

Punjab that went to Pakistan—allowing drug pedlars and terrorists to cross

into India from Pakistan. Or, that between the East Bengal (Pakistan, now

Bangladesh) and West Bengal (India), that has allowed Bangladeshi

refugees to inundate India. Or, that between J&K and Pakistan and PoK,

that allows terrorists from Pakistan to filter through. If Punjab, Bengal, and

J&K could do without a natural border, why not Sindh? Why shouldn’t

there have been a Hindu or Indian Sindh?

Another argument is that this kind of partition could not have been done

in all regions. Otherwise, why not earmarked areas say in UP for Muslims?

There are several reasons for this. There was NO Muslim-majority district

then in UP. Partition was restricted to border areas, and not anywhere

within India or within Pakistan. Sindh fell in the border area. Initially, the

concept of Pakistan was restricted ONLY to northwest India—it did not

even include East Bengal.

When the Muslim League proposed Sindh as one of the components of

their future Pakistan in the 1930s and later, or when the Groupings (Group-

A, B, C) were proposed, Indian leaders and Hindu Sindhis should have

objected to the inclusion of whole of Sindh as a Muslim-majority area in

Pakistan. They didn’t.

However, the real reason nothing was done to retain a part of the

homeland for them, like it was done for the Punjabis and Bengalis, seems to

be that unlike the Sikhs or the Hindu Bengalis, the Hindu Sindhis did not

fight for it. Hindus of Sindh were generally not aggressive or bellicose like

the minority non-Muslims in Punjab. The world at large is too cruel and

indifferent to the plight of any given section of people unless they

themselves fight and sacrifice for their rights. Jews suffered for centuries till

they asserted themselves with the creation of Israel. Tibetans, with their

non-violent Buddhism, have been deprived of their nation. Yezidis and

Kurds, who have been at the receiving end for centuries, are now fighting

back. On account of their cultured past of thousands of years, and their

engagement in businesses, the Hindu Sindhis had been too peaceful to

resist, agitate and fight.

Yet, something was expected from the India leadership of Gandhi-Nehru

& Co, in whom the Sindhis had reposed their faith. All one can say is that

perhaps the nature of our freedom movement, and the quality and

competence of our national leaders left a lot to be desired. Sadly, Gandhi–

Nehru & Co suffered from an inherently defective world-view, thinking and

vision, and were too poor as strategists, tacticians and implementers on the

ground to be able to outsmart the British or the Muslim League, or stand up

to their designs—not just with regard to Sindh, but in all other matters too!

Sardar Patel had that genius, but Gandhi–Nehru combine often overlooked

him, or did not allow him a free hand.

MAKING JEWS OF HINDU SINDHIS

At the time of independence there were about 1.4 million (accounting for

the increase in population since the 1931 census) Hindu Sindhis, most of

whom, to save themselves from the violence, decided to leave, especially

after the influx of the Muslim refugees (Mohajirs) who started looting their

(Hindu Sindhis) properties and evicting them from their homes. By June

1948, about a million Hindu Sindhis had left Pakistan for India. Migrations

continued thereafter, and tapered off in 1951.

Although Hindu Sindhis were deprived of their homeland, cultural

identity, businesses, land, shops, properties, residential quarters—making

beggars out of prosperous families—no one batted an eyelid, not the UN, or

a Human Rights Organisation, or the US, or the UK, or the Pakistanis with

whom they had stayed for centuries, or even the Indians! They became like

the Jews of the past (before Israel was created in 1948), or the Tibetans of

the 1950s, or the Kashmiri Pandits of 1990s, or the Kurds and the Yezidis of

the current times.

India was a poor country, and thanks to Nehruvian economic policies, it

remained a poor country. There was little that Nehruvian India offered to

the hapless Hindu Sindhi refugees, who had lost everything. They were

condemned to their miserable fate, and dumped in outer areas of several

cities and towns, without any worthwhile help or facilities. Yet, one has to

salute the spirit and hard work of the Hindu Sindhi community which

without any governmental help gradually stood on its own feet, and became

prosperous.

If the Indian leaders, that is, Gandhi-Nehru & Co, had followed the

Ambedkar-suggested model (detailed elsewhere in this book) of partition,

and peaceful population and property exchange, not only would the Hindu

Sindhi community have been adequately compensated for the loss of their

assets in Pakistan, they would not have suffered violence and deprivation.

Blunder–10 :

GIVING AWAY 55 CRORES TO PAKISTAN

India and Pakistan had agreed in November 1947 that Rupees 55 crores

remained to be transferred to Pakistan, as its share of the assets of

undivided India. However, at the insistence of Sardar Patel, India informed

Pakistan, within two hours of the agreement, that the actual implementation

of the agreement would hinge on a settlement on Kashmir. Said Sardar

Patel:

“In the division of assets we treated Pakistan generously. But we cannot

tolerate even a pie being spent for making bullets to be shot at us. The

settlement of assets is like a consent decree. The decree will be executed

when all the outstanding points are satisfactorily settled.”{RG/461}

Pakistan had been pressing India for rupees 55 crores (over USD 500

million in today’s terms). In the Cabinet meeting in January 1948 Sardar

Patel stated that the money if given would surely be used by Pakistan to

arm itself for use in Kashmir, hence the payment should be delayed. Dr

Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, NV Gadgil and Dr BR Ambedkar backed Patel.

Nehru too expressed his total agreement. The Cabinet therefore decided to

withhold the money. Sardar Patel told in a Press Conference on 12 January

1948 that the issue of 55 crores could not be dissociated from the other

related issues.{RG/462}

Gandhi conveyed to Patel the next day (13 January 1948) that

withholding 55 crores from Pakistan was what Mountbatten had opined to

him as “a dishonourable act… unstatesman-like and unwise”{RG/462} , and

what he [Gandhi] thought was immoral. Patel was furious and asked of

Mountbatten: “How can you as a constitutional Governor-General do this

behind my back? Do you know the facts?...”{RG/462}

Gandhi was apparently innocent of the fact that Mountbatten and the

British were bent upon favouring Pakistan—even on Kashmir, despite

Pakistan’s aggression. How could a top leader be so blind to the realities?

Unfortunately, Nehru, rather than supporting Patel, and sticking to what he

had himself agreed to, and had got passed in the Cabinet, went back on his

commitment, and commented to Gandhi: “Yes, it was passed [in the

Cabinet] but we don’t have a case. It is legal quibbling.”{RG/463}

Gandhi and Nehru, rather than being prudent about what was in the best

interest of the nation, went by what the British colonial representative

Mountbatten, having his own axe to grind, had to say, and the Cabinet

decision was reversed to let Pakistan have the money, and trouble India

further in J&K! Going by the net results, effectively, it appears that for

Gandhi maintaining “Brand Mahatma”, and its associated “morality” was

more important—the question is why didn’t Gandhi and Mountbatten

consider the immorality of Pakistan in attacking Kashmir which had already

acceded to India? If Pakistan had agreed to desist from its illegal action in

Kashmir, it would have got the money anyway. Further, Gandhi wanted to

look good in the eyes of the Muslims in Pakistan and India. Ignore national

interest for the sake of appeasement, and your own image! And for Nehru,

kowtowing to Mountbatten and Gandhi was a priority, rather than standing

up for the Cabinet decision, of which he was a part. People like Sardar Patel

were out of place in such a scenario. Gandhi went on a fast to force the

issue in his favour (it was one of the several issues that led him to fast).

Patel yielded, Gandhi won, and India lost. Wrote Rajmohan Gandhi:

“Wounded by Mountbatten’s backbiting and Jawaharlal’s disloyalty and

bitter at Gandhi’s stand on the 55 crores, Patel felt too that the timing of

Gandhi’s fast ‘was hopelessly wrong’.”{RG/464}

All those leaders, including Mountbatten and Nehru, who encouraged or

prompted Gandhi into that unreasonable position [of going on fast] were

indirectly guilty of his untimely death. Patel had said something similar to

General Roy Bucher:

“At our meeting in Dehra Dun, the Sardar [Patel] told me that those who

persuaded the Mahatma to suggest that monies (Rs. 55 crore) held in

India should be despatched to Pakistan were responsible for the tragedy,

and that after the monies were sent off, the Mahatma was moved up to be

the first to be assassinated on the books of a very well-known Hindu

revolutionary society. I distinctly remember the Sardar saying: ‘You

know quite well that for Gandhi to express a wish was almost an order.’”

It was on Gandhi’s insistence that [his] security had been

withdrawn.”{BK2/xxi-xxii}

Blunder–11 :

PRE-INDEPENDENCE DYNASTY PROMOTION

Jawaharlal Nehru’s dynastic tendencies, inherited from his father Motilal,

were apparent in the 1930s itself, much before he became the prime

minister.

After the 1937 elections when the ministry was being formed in UP,

Govind Ballabh Pant (who became the Chief Minister) and Rafi Ahmed

Kidwai proposed to Nehru inclusion of Mrs Vijayalakshmi Pandit [Nehru’s

sister] in the ministry, which Nehru readily agreed. Why did they do so?

Not because they considered Vijayalakshmi competent! But, by doing so,

they hoped to receive Nehru’s favour, and hoped to save themselves from

unnecessary interference and outbursts of Nehru!{DD/184}

On Vijayalakshmi Pandit, there is an episode of the time Nehru was head

of the Interim Government in 1946, as written by Stanley Wolpert in his

book, ‘Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny’:

“Liaquat Ali Khan and Nehru almost came to blows in the interim

government’s cabinet, when Nehru named his sister Nan [Vijayalakshmi

Pandit] as India’s first ambassador to Moscow. Liaquat was livid at such

autocratic blatant nepotism, but his protests fell on deaf ears. Nehru

yelled louder and threatened to resign immediately if Dickie

[Mountbatten] supported Liaquat in the matter.”{Wolp2/398}

Blunder–12 :

WHAT REALLY LED TO INDIA’S INDEPENDENCE?

Often, when one points out the blunders of Nehru, the same are sought to

be white-washed by highlighting that “after all, Nehru (along with Gandhi

and other Gandhians) won for us our freedom”! So, was it Gandhi-Nehru-

Congress that made the British ‘Quit India’?

WAS FREEDOM THANKS TO GANDHI-NEHRU & CONGRESS? NO

The last (and only!) Gandhian movement for full independence was the

Quit India Movement of 1942. Mind you the previous movements like the

Rowlatt Satyagraha, etc., or the two major once-in-a-decade Gandhian

movements—the ‘Khilafat & Non-cooperation Movement’ (KNCM) of

1920-22, and the ‘Salt Satyagraha’ of 1930 plus the Civil Disobedience

Movement of 1931-32 that followed it—did NOT have complete

independence in their agenda at all! Yes, the Congress and the Congress

leaders did talk of swaraj or dominion status or independence in their

meeting, resolutions, speeches, and writings, and did officially promulgate

the ‘Purna Swaraj Declaration’, or the ‘Declaration of the Independence of

India’ at Lahore (as late as) on 29 December 1929, followed by its pledge

on 26 January 1930; BUT in none of their major movements until the Quit

India 1942 did the Congress include ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full independence as

an item of agenda or as a demand on the British!

And even for the Quit India 1942, recorded the noted historian Dr RC

Majumdar: “Far from claiming any credit for achievements of 1942 [Quit

India], both Gandhi and the Congress offered apology and explanation for

the ‘madness’ which seized the people participating in it.”—quoted by the

author Anuj Dhar in his tweet of 1 July 2018. Anuj Dhar also tweeted: “The

claim that Quit India led to freedom is a state sanctioned hoax.”{AD1}

Quit India fizzled out in about two months. After Quit India, Gandhi did

not launch any movement. Is one to infer that the call to Quit India given in

1942 was acted upon by the British after a lapse of five years in 1947? That

there was some kind of an ultra-delayed tubelight response? Quit India call

heard after a delay of five years!

Britain hinted at independence in 1946, and announced it formally in

1947, even though there was hardly any pressure from the Congress on

Britain to do so. Many of the rulers of the Princely States in fact wondered

and questioned the Raj as to why they wanted to leave (they didn’t want

them to—it was a question of their power and perks, which were safe under

the British) when there was no movement against them, and no demand or

pressure on them to leave.

The British initially announced the timeline as June 1948 to leave India.

Later, they themselves preponed it to August 1947. If the British didn’t

wish to leave, and it was the Congress which was making them leave, why

would the British voluntarily announce preponement of their departure? The

long and short of it is that Gandhi and Gandhism and the Gandhian

Congress were NOT really the reasons the British left. Gandhi himself

admitted as much .

WHAT THEY SAID

What Gandhi had himself said:

“I see it as clearly as I see my finger: British are leaving not because of

any strength on our part but because of historical conditions and for many

other reasons.” —Mahatma Gandhi{Gill/24}

The “historical conditions and other reasons” were not of Gandhi’s

making, or that of the Congress—they were despite them. In the context of

the choice of the national flag in 1947 Gandhi had said:

“But what is wrong with having the Union Jack in a corner of our flag? If

harm has been done to us by the British it has not been done by their flag

and we must also take note of the virtues of the British. They are

voluntarily withdrawing from India, leaving power in our hands. A

drastic bill which virtually liquidates the Empire did not take even a

week to pass in Parliament. Time was when even very unimportant bills

took a year and more to be passed...”{CWMG/Vol-96/86-87}

Admitted Gandhi, on different occasions during 1946-47: “Have I led the

country astray?... Is there something wrong with me, or are things really

going wrong… Truth and ahimsa, by which I swear and which have to my

knowledge sustained me for sixty years seem to fail… My own doctrine

was failing. I don’t want to be a failure but a successful man. But it may be

I die a failure…”{Gill/212}

He realised that his decades of work had come to an “inglorious end”. An

airy creed based on unreal, unscientific and irrational foundations that

ignored historical, economic, religious and imperialist forces, and either did

not recognise or grossly underestimated the forces it was up against, and the

nature of British interests, had to fail.

Gandhi had envisaged the British troops remaining in India after

independence for some time to train Indians. That is, Gandhi never

considered driving out the British as an option, in which case the British

would certainly not have obliged by remaining in India to train their

adversaries. Gandhi had remarked: “Having clipped our wings it is their

[British] duty to give us wings wherewith we can fly.”{Nan/314}

What the above implies is that Gandhi’s independence movement was a

friendly match where the adversary [the British], after withdrawing, was

expected to be sporting, and be generous to the other side.

S.S. Gill:

“It seems presumptuous to pick holes in Gandhi’s campaigns and

strategies, and appear to belittle a man of epic dimensions, especially when

the nationalist mythologies render it sacrilegious to re-evaluate his

achievements. Great men of action, who perform great deeds, do commit

great mistakes. And there is no harm in pointing these out. In one sense it is

a Gandhian duty, as he equated truth with God.”{Gill/75}

“It is generally believed that Gandhi’s greatest achievement was the

liberation of India from colonial rule. But historical evidence does not

support this view.”{Gill/24}

Dr BR Ambedkar:

“…The Quit India Campaign turned out to be a complete failure… It was

a mad venture and took the most diabolical form. It was a scorch-earth

campaign in which the victims of looting, arson and murder were Indians

and the perpetrators were Congressmen… Beaten, he [Gandhi] started a fast

for twenty-one days in March 1943 while he was in gaol with the object of

getting out of it. He failed. Thereafter he fell ill. As he was reported to be

sinking the British Government released him for fear that he might die on

their hand and bring them ignominy… On coming out of gaol, he [Gandhi]

found that he and the Congress had not only missed the bus but had also

lost the road. To retrieve the position and win for the Congress the respect

of the British Government as a premier party in the country which it had

lost by reason of the failure of the campaign that followed up the Quit India

Resolution, and the violence which accompanied it, he started negotiating

with the Viceroy… Thwarted in that attempt, Mr. Gandhi turned to Mr.

Jinnah…”{Amb3}

Nirad Chaudhuri:

“…After being proved to be dangerous ideologues by that [world] war,

the pacifists have now fallen back on Gandhi as their last prop, and are

arguing that by liberating India from the foreign rule by his non-violent

methods he has proved that non-violent methods and ideas are sound.

Unfortunately, the British abandonment of India before Gandhi’s death has

given a spurious and specious plausibility to what is in reality only a

coincidence without causal relationship… And finally, he [Gandhi] had no

practical achievement, as I shall show when I deal with his death. What is

attributed to him politically is pure myth…”{NC/41}

Patrick French:

“From late 1930s onwards, Gandhi was a liability to the freedom

movement, pursuing an eccentric agenda that created as many problems as

it solved. V.S. Naipaul has put it more bluntly, ‘Gandhi lived too

long.’”{PF/105}

VS Naipaul:

“Not everyone approved of Gandhi’s methods. Many were dismayed by

the apparently arbitrary dictates of his 'inner voice'. And in the political

stalemate of the 1930s—for which some Indians still blame him: Gandhi’s

unpredictable politics, they say, his inability to manage the forces he had

released, needlessly lengthened out the Independence struggle, delayed self-

government by twenty-five years, and wasted the lives and talents of many

good men…”{Na1}

Sita Ram Goel:

“The way of Subhas Bose was the way of a straight patriot. And he stuck

to that way to the bitter end. He did not change his way when he was

thrown out of the Congress by a curious combination of Rightists and

Leftists. He did not change his way when he was completely isolated in the

country. It was while walking on that way that he went out of the country,

organized the Azad Hind Fauj, forged national unity on a bloody

battlefield, and, wrecked the morale of the British Indian Army which (and

not the resolutions and jail journeys of the Khaddar-clad crowd, as we are

now officially asked to believe) forced the British to quit India.”{SRG2/144}

“The main plank of Congress propaganda after independence has been

that it drove out the British by means of non-violent non-

cooperation and brought freedom to the country. The Congress

refers with particular pride to the policies it pursued during the Second

World War period, particularly after the Quit India Resolution was passed in

Bombay in August 1942. To put it simply, we are asked to believe that

British imperialism in India got frightened because some Congressmen in

some parts of the country pulled down some telephone poles and broke a

number of letter-boxes before they were herded into British jails.”{SRG2/146}

“But this is one of the big lies known to human history. And deep down

in his own mind every Congressman knows that he is telling a lie. For,

whatever might have been the merit or demerit of Congress policies before

the Second World War broke out, the policies which the Congress pursued

during the War period were singularly barren and bankrupt. If these policies

succeeded in achieving anything, it was the partition of the country and the

planting of the communist Trojan horse squarely in our midst.”{SRG2/146}

“As regards independence, it came because the War reduced Britain to

a bankrupt power, because the morale of the British Indian Army was

broken by Subhas Bose's Azad Hind Fauj, and because the British Labour

Party, in spite of Pandit Nehru's malicious insinuations against it in all his

books, really believed in the slogans it had raised. It is quite another matter

that the Congress inherited the power which the British were in a hurry to

part with. That does not prove that power came to the Congress as a result

of its own efforts, or that the Congress was qualified to use that power in

terms of its inner cohesion or intrinsic character. The only thing it proves is

that the departing British had retained a sufficient measure of confidence in

the Congress organisation. The British believed that the Congress would be

able to prolong the life of that political system which they had imposed on

India...”{SRG2/146}

FREEDOM: THE REAL REASONS

Till the early 1940s the British were well-ensconced in power, and looked

forward to comfortably sailing through for several more decades—

notwithstanding the Gandhian agitations of over two decades since 1918. If

they played politics between the Congress and the Muslim League it was

only to prolong their rule, and not to give independence or create Pakistan.

They never perceived the Gandhian non-violent methods as threats to their

rule. Then what changed that they left? Those major factors are detailed

below.

1) WW-II and its Consequence

UK’s Precarious Economy, and WW-II Exhaustion.

1.1) The UK was in a precarious economic condition as a consequence

of the Second World War. It was hugely debt-ridden, and the maintenance

of its colonies had become a tremendous drag on the UK exchequer. The

Britain had colonised India to loot, and not to invest in it or to maintain it.

The money flow had to be from India to Britain to justify continuance of

the colony; and not the other way round, which had begun to happen.

“The Empire was no longer turning a profit, or even paying its way…

The result was what the historian Correlli Barnett has called ‘one of the

most outstanding examples of strategic over-extension in history’.”{PF/197}

The famous UK economist John Maynard Keynes, who also happened to

be an economic advisor to the UK, presented the war cabinet in 1945 with a

financial analysis that showed that running the British Empire had cost

1,000 million pounds for each of the past two years, rising post-war to

1,400 million pounds per year; and that without the US financial assistance,

the UK would go bankrupt!{Tim}

The British exchequer was forced to freeze debt repayment. Britain owed

the largest amount to India in war debt: 1250 million pounds!{Chee/3} {Wire1}

Contrast the above reverse money-drain to the following Indian loot that

was the reason for the establishment and prolongation of the Raj:

“…’twice in less than a century, India was conquered by the British with

Indian money’. First, India paid for the [East India] Company armies,

which campaign by campaign reached Delhi; and then the country was

burdened with the cost of suppressing the Mutiny—the latter was estimated

at Rs 40 crores [value then]. [That is, financing both to conquer India, and

then to re-establish and perpetuate the British rule upon Mutiny, was by

taxing, looting, and extracting money from India and Indians.] There was

also the constant drain of India’s wealth towards London; the Company was

earning £30,000,000 per year by the 1850s and remitting 11 back to

England. Under the rule of the Crown [after Mutiny, from 1958] it was

worse. By 1876-7 £13,500,000 was going to London out of annual revenues

of £56,000,000, or 24%. The impoverishment of villages took on an

extraordinary magnitude by the turn of the century…”{Akb/159-60}

1.2) By the end of the WW-II territorial colonisation had ceased to be a

viable enterprise, and decolonisation began. In fact, around the time India

got its independence, many other colonies (like Sri Lanka, Burma–

Myanmar, etc.) also got their independence, although there was not much of

an independence movement in those colonies that would have forced the

colonisers to leave. During 1947 Britain also pushed plans through the UN

that would enable it to leave Palestine; and finally Israel was created on 14

May 1948.

1.3) Viceroy Wavell had stated to King-Emperor George VI as early as

on 8 July 1946: “We are bound to fulfil our pledges to give India her

freedom as soon as possible—and we have neither the power nor, I think,

the will to remain in control of India for more than an extremely limited

period...We are in fact conducting a retreat, and in very difficult

circumstances…”{Pani2/v}

1.4) Militarily, administratively, financially, and above all, mentally the

British were too exhausted after the Second World War to continue with

their colonies.

2) Netaji Bose, INA and Army Mutinies

2.1) The military onslaught of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his INA

hugely shook the British, and the Indian army.

2.2) The Viceroy was shocked to learn of thousands of soldiers of the

British-Indian army switching over to INA (to support the enemy nation

Japan) after the fall of Singapore in 1942. It meant the Indian soldiers in the

British-Indian army could no longer be relied upon. What was more—there

was a huge support for Netaji Bose and the INA among the common public

in India.

Wrote Maulana Azad in his autobiography: “After the surrender of Japan,

the British reoccupied Burma and many officers of the Indian National

Army (INA) were taken prisoner. They did not repent their action in having

joined the Indian National Army and some of them were now facing trial

for treason. All these developments convinced the British that they could no

longer rely on the armed forces…”{Azad/142}

2.3) The INA Red Fort trials of 1945-46 mobilised public opinion

against the British on an unprecedented scale, so much so that the Congress

leaders like Nehru (who had till then, and later too, opposed Netaji and

INA) had to demonstratively pretend their support to the INA under-trials to

get votes in the 1946 general elections.

2.4) The Indian Naval Mutiny of 1946 and the Jabalpur Army Mutiny of

1946, both provoked partially by the INA trials, convinced the British that

they could no longer trust the Indian Army to suppress Indians, and

continue to rule over them.

2.5) In the context of the Indian colony, Sir Stafford Cripps stated in the

British Parliament on 5 March 1947 that Britain had only two alternatives:

either to (1)transfer power to Indians, or (2)considerably reinforce British

troops in India to retain hold. The latter (option-2), he judged as impossible!

{Gill/24}

2.6) Comments Narendra Singh Sarila: “In South-east Asia, Bose

blossomed, and,... played an important role in demoralizing the British

military establishment in India. Indeed, it is a toss-up whether Gandhiji’s or

Bose’s influence during the period 1945-46—even after Bose’s death—

played a more important role in destabilizing British rule in India.”{Sar/125}

2.7) Wrote MKK Nayar: “The reason why Britain unilaterally granted

freedom even before Congress had intensified its agitation was on account

of Netaji’s greatness. Army jawans who had never dared to utter a word

against the British had united as one to declare that INA’s soldiers were

patriots. Men of the Navy fearlessly pointed guns at British ships and

establishments and opened fire. It was the same soldiers who had for a

hundred years obeyed orders like slaves, even to massacre unhesitatingly at

the notorious Jallianwala Bagh. They had now united to express their

opinion and Naval men had shown their readiness to raise the flag of revolt.

Attlee and others probably realized that Indian soldiers may no longer be

available to hunt Indians. This may have prompted them to leave with

dignity and self-respect.”{MKN}

2.8) Stated Dr BR Ambedkar: “…The national army [INA] that was

raised by Subhas Chandra Bose. The British had been ruling the country in

the firm belief that whatever may happen in the country or whatever the

politicians do, they will never be able to change the loyalty of soldiers. That

was one prop on which they were carrying on the administration. And that

was completely dashed to pieces [by Bose and INA]. They found that

soldiers could be seduced to form a party—a battalion to blow off the

British. I think the British had come to the conclusion that if they were to

rule India, the only basis on which they would rule was the maintenance of

the British Army.”{Amb}

2.9) The British historian Michael Edwardes wrote: “It slowly dawned

upon the government of India that the backbone of the British rule, the

Indian Army, might now no longer be trustworthy. The ghost of Subhas

Bose, like Hamlet's father, walked the battlements of the Red Fort (where

the INA soldiers were being tried), and his suddenly amplified figure

overawed the conference that was to lead to Independence.”{ME/93}

2.10) Chief Justice PB Chakrabarty of Calcutta High Court, who had

also served as the acting Governor of West Bengal in India after

independence, wrote in his letter addressed to the publisher of

Dr RC Majumdar's book ‘A History of Bengal’{IT1} :

“You have fulfilled a noble task by persuading Dr. Majumdar to write

this history of Bengal and publishing it ...In the preface of the book Dr

Majumdar has written that he could not accept the thesis that Indian

independence was brought about solely, or predominantly by the non-

violent civil disobedience movement of Gandhi. When I was the acting

Governor, Lord Atlee, who had given us independence by withdrawing

the British rule from India, spent two days in the Governor's palace at

Calcutta during his tour of India. At that time I had a prolonged

discussion with him regarding the real factors that had led the British to

quit India. My direct question to him was that since Gandhi's ‘Quit India’

movement had tapered off quite some time ago and in 1947 no such new

compelling situation had arisen that would necessitate a hasty British

departure, why did they have to leave?

“In his reply Atlee cited several reasons, the principal among them being

the erosion of loyalty to the British Crown among the Indian army and

navy personnel as a result of the military activities of Netaji [Subhas

Bose]. Toward the end of our discussion I asked Atlee what was the

extent of Gandhi's influence upon the British decision to quit India.

Hearing this question, Atlee's lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as

he slowly chewed out the word, ‘m-i-n-i-m-a-l !’”{Gla/159} {Stat1}

The Chief Justice also wrote: “Apart from revisionist historians, it was

none other than Lord Clement Atlee himself, the British Prime Minster

responsible for conceding independence to India, who gave a shattering

blow to the myth sought to be perpetuated by court historians, that Gandhi

and his movement had led the country to freedom.”

2.11) Basically, the British decided to leave because they were fast losing

control on account of the various factors detailed above; and lacked the

financial resources, the military clout (thanks to Bose, the INA, the

Mutinies, and the anti-British atmosphere they created), and, above all, the

will to regain that control.

3) Pressure from the US

The Cripps Mission of March-April 1942, the first one in the direction of

freedom for India, was under the pressure from the US. The US felt that the

best way to secure India from Japan was to grant it freedom, and obtain its

support in the war.

US President Roosevelt had constantly pressurised Britain on India, and

had specially deputed Colonel Louis Johnson to India as his personal

representative to lobby for the Indian freedom.{Sar/104}

Infuriated at President Roosevelt’s sympathy for the nationalists

[Indians], Churchill dismissed Congress as merely “the intelligentsia of

non-fighting Hindu elements, who can neither defend India nor raise a

revolt.”{MM/218}

The US kept up the pressure. The US wanted Britain to settle the Indian

issue so that India could provide whole-hearted support in WW-II.

Although the war in Europe was almost over by April 1945 (Hitler

committed suicide on April 30), not so the war in Asia—a large area was

still occupied by Japan. Japan unconditionally surrendered only on 14

August 1945, after the dropping of atomic bombs on 6 and 9 August on

Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. Shimla Conference was called on 25

June 1945 by Viceroy Wavell for Indian self-government again under

pressure from Americans to get full Indian support to dislodge Japan from

its occupied territories of Burma, Singapore and Indonesia.

The Japanese surrender following the dropping of atom-bombs

dramatically enhanced the US military clout. The US thereafter insisted that

the Atlantic Charter be also made applicable to the European colonies in

Asia (it was, after all, a question of grabbing markets for the US capitalists),

and they all be freed. Thanks to the war, Britain had almost gone bankrupt,

and was dependent on massive American aid. It could not therefore ignore

or withstand the US pressure. Clement Attlee himself acknowledged in his

autobiography that it was difficult for Britain to keep sticking on to the

Indian colony given the constant American pressure against the British

Empire.

Writes Maria Misra: “…the crisis ridden British economy and, especially

perhaps, American pressure to decolonize, simply could not be ignored. As

[Viceroy] Wavell himself confided to his diary, while Churchill, Bevin and

Co. ‘hate the idea of our leaving India but… [they have] no alternative to

suggest.”{MM/232}

Writes Patrick French: “[By 1946] Demobilization [of armed forces] was

almost complete, and there was no political will on either side of the House

of Commons for stopping this process and reinforcing India with the

necessary five divisions. Indeed, it would not have been possible without

US funding, which would never have been forthcoming.”{PF/289}

Wrote Maulana Azad: “I have already referred to the pressure which

President Roosevelt was putting on the British Government for a settlement

of the Indian question. After Pearl Harbour, American public opinion

became more and more insistent and demanded that India’s voluntary

cooperation in the war effort must be secured [by giving it freedom].”{Azad/47}

The fact of American help and pressure in getting independence for India

is not adequately acknowledged by India.

Apart from the US, the Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, part of

the Allies in WW-II, had also throughout pressed the British Government to

recognise India’s independence to enable it to render all help it was capable

of.{Azad/41}

The Chicago Tribune in its valedictory tribute to Churchill had

mentioned that “we [the US] have no interest in maintaining [or allowing

the UK to maintain] her oppressive empire.”{PC/366}

4) Gandhi & the Congress?

Gandhi and the Congress were among the minor reasons and non-

decisive factors the British left. Strangely, and quite unjustifiably, the focus

is on Gandhi, Nehru and the Congress on each anniversary of the

Independence Day of India.

5) The British Sought Freedom from India!?

It may sound ironic but by 1946–47 it was actually Britain which sought

freedom from India!

As Patrick French puts it: “The role given to him [Mountbatten] by

Attlee’s government was to be the lubricant of imperial withdrawal; nothing

more. His task was to give Britain—a harassed, war-torn, penniless little

island—freedom from its Indian Empire, which had turned from a valuable

asset into a frightening burden.”{PF/289}

Blunder–13 :

BRITISH JAILS: NEHRU/TOP-GANDHIANS AS VIPS VS. OTHERS

In sharp contrast to the top Gandhians, who were treated very well in

jails, the condition of Indian political prisoners, including revolutionaries,

in jails was terrible: their uniforms were not washed for several days; rats

and cockroaches roamed their kitchen area; reading and writing materials

were not provided to them. Being political prisoners, they expected to be

treated like one, rather than as common criminals. They demanded equality

with the jailed Europeans and the top Gandhians in food standards,

clothing, toiletries, and other hygienic necessities, as well as access to

books and a daily newspapers. They also protested against their subjection

to forced manual labour. To force the issue, Bhagat Singh and colleagues,

including Jatin Das, began hunger strike. Jatin was martyred on 13

September 1929 in Lahore jail after a 63-day hunger strike.

Talking of suffering and sacrifices, many were tortured and whipped in

British jails—but, never the top Gandhian Congress leaders. Nehru himself

describes in his book of severe whipping of other imprisoned freedom-

fighters in jails. For most Gandhiites, especially the top ones, the jails were,

relatively speaking, comfortable. While ruthlessly persecuting the other

freedom fighters, the British kid gloved Gandhi-Nehru & Co, and

incarcerated them under comfortable conditions. When arrested in 1930, the

British took due care to provide all provisions for the health and comfort of

Gandhi. That their (top Gandhians, including Azad and Nehru) life in

Ahmednagar jail during 1942-45 was not all that terrible can be inferred

from the following episodes. Wrote Rajmohan Gandhi:

“On the day of their arrival [in jail], Kripalani recalls Azad showing

‘towering rage’: he threw out the Jailor who had brought ready-to-drink

tea for them in an aluminium kettle along with loaves of bread on an

aluminium plate and glasses for the tea. The Congress President

‘ordered’ the jailor to bring tea in a pot, milk in a jug and sugar in a

bowl, plus cups, saucers and spoons. The jailor, an Indian, complied.

According to Pattabhi, he was ‘bravely performing his duties with visible

regard for his new guests and with unshakeable loyalty to his old

masters’.”{RG2}

Described Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in his autobiography:

“Dinner was served to us soon after on iron platters. We did not like them

and I told the jailer that we were accustomed to eat from China plates.

The jailer apologised and said that he could not supply us with a dinner

set then but it would be obtained the next day. A convict from Poona had

been brought to serve us as our cook. He could not prepare food

according to our taste. He was soon changed and a better cook

appointed.”{Azad/91}

The routine of the leaders in Ahmednagar jail, that included Azad,

Nehru, Patel, etc., used to be generally: breakfast at 7am, lunch at 1pm,

bridge from 1pm to 3pm, rest from 3pm to 5pm followed by tea (alternately,

writing or reading work between lunch and tea), games from 6pm to 7pm,

dinner from 7pm to 8.30pm followed by coffee, then retire.

Gandhi was “imprisoned” between 1942 and 1944 in the grand Aga Khan

Palace in Pune.

Nehru had access to newspapers, magazines and books in Naini and other

jails. He also had ample supply of reading and writing materials. He wrote

‘Glimpses of World History’ in Naini jail between 1930 and 1933; ‘An

Autobiography’ during 1934-35 in Bareilly and Dehra Dun jails;

‘Discovery of India’ between 1942 and 1945 in Ahmednagar Jail.

Jails were almost a holiday vacation for the top Gandhians. Wrote Asaf

Ali: Nehru almost had a bungalow to himself in his so-called jail with

curtains of his choicest colour—blue. He could do gardening at leisure and

write his books. When his wife was sick, his sentence was suspended even

without he asking for it!{URL70}

It is said that Sir Harcourt Butler, the then Governor of UP, had even sent

quality food and a champagne bottle to Motilal Nehru in his prison{Sar/323} ,

out of consideration for their association. As per MJ Akbar’s book: “…but

this, Motilal [Nehru] told me [Arthur Moore, a former editor of ‘The

Statesman’], is what happened. His [Motilal’s] first morning in prison an

ADC from Government House [Sir Harcourt Butler was the governor]

arrived at lunchtime with a half-bottle of champagne wrapped in a napkin,

and every single day of his imprisonment this was repeated.”{Akb/123-4}

Wrote Nehru in his autobiography:

“Personally, I have been very fortunate, and almost invariably, I have

received courtesy from my own countrymen and English. Even my

gaolers and the policemen, who have arrested me or escorted me as a

prisoner from place to place, have been kind to me, and much of the

bitterness of conflict and the sting of gaol life has been toned down

because of this human touch...Even for Englishmen I was an individual

and not merely one of the mass, and, I imagine, the fact that I had

received my education in England, and especially my having been to an

English public school, brought me nearer to them. Because of this, they

could not help considering me as more or less civilized after their own

pattern...”{JN2}

Sadly, the top Gandhian leaders like Gandhi, Nehru did nothing to ensure

revolutionaries and other freedom fighters got just treatment equivalent to

them as freedom fighters. No non-cooperation, no andolan, no civil

disobedience, no fast to support them or get them justice. In sharp contrast,

Lokmanya Tilak had done all he could to support other freedom fighters,

including revolutionaries. This when the revolutionaries had whole-

heartedly supported Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920-22.

Savarkar and other prisoners in Kaalapani (a precursor to Gulag

Archipelago and Guantanamo Bay prisons of our times) were subjected to

brutal inhuman treatment. Prisoners were manacled; gruel to eat was riddled

with worms; inmates, formed in groups, were chained like bullocks and

hauled to oil mills, grinding mustard seed for endless hours. Prisoners were

flogged.{URL70}

Had even 5% of the above treatment been meted out to the likes of Nehru

and other top Gandhians, they might have given up the fight for freedom.

However, the sacrifices of Savarkar and others were not recognised. What is

most noteworthy is that while many who suffered in the fight for freedom

remained faceless and unacknowledged, Nehrus enjoyed all the fruits of

their ‘sacrifice’—and many, many times more. It was the most profitable

investment they made, with returns thousands of times more, and through

the decades, for the whole dynasty and descendants!

Blunder–14 :

CLUELESS ON THE ROOTS OF PARTITION & PAKISTAN

The lack of support by Nehru (Blunder#3,4) and the Congress to the

British war efforts in WW-II made the British anti-Hindus and anti-

Congress, and made them favourably disposed towards the Muslims and the

AIML. Wrote VP Menon in ‘The Transfer of Power in India’:

“Moreover, the Congress opposition to the war effort [WW-II] and the

[Muslim] League's de facto support for it convinced the British that the

Hindus generally were their enemies and the Muslims their friends, and

this consideration must have added force to the silent but effective

official support for the policy of partition.”{VPM2/438/L-8234}

Based on their negative experiences with Nehru (Blunder#3,4) and the

Congress in WW-II, and positive experiences with the Muslim League, and

driven by the several major strategic considerations, Britain developed a

vested interest in the creation of Pakistan: (1)The UK and the West wanted

to secure ‘Oil and the Middle East’, and for that they felt a Muslim Pakistan

as a border state would be critical. (2)The leadership of the proposed

Muslim Pakistan was willing to be their accomplice in the cold war. (3)The

proposed Muslim Pakistan was willing to provide military bases to the UK

and the West. (4)Nehru, with his leftist, pro-Russia and pro-Socialist-

Communist leanings was not likely to be an ally of the UK and the West in

the cold war. Sadly, Gandhi and the remaining Congress leadership had not

clarified their stand in the matter. Unfortunately, what the “internationalist

& foreign-affairs expert” Nehru articulated passed off as Congress-India’s

foreign policy.

DN Panigrahi states in his book ‘Jammu and Kashmir, The Cold War and

the West’:

“Clement Attlee [UK PM, 1945-51], in his official as well as private

correspondence, categorically stated that Kashmir was an issue so

germane to ‘the Muslim world’ that they must support Pakistan keeping

in view British interest in the Middle East. ...the western powers,

including Britain, considered Pakistan ‘as a key factor in international

politics by virtue of being Muslim’ and because of its proximity with the

Middle East. ...Sir Olaf Caroe...an ICS officer...wrote an article on

Pakistan’s potential role for Middle East defence...in 1949...his

influential book, ‘Wells of Power: The Oilfields of South Western Asia, a

Regional and Global Study’. He argued that Middle Eastern oil held the

key to progress and to international relations in the world in the

future...”{Pani/3}

“The main thrust of the Caroe’s argument was that the competition for oil

would determine the future relationships of the powers and that ‘the

danger of attack of Soviet Russia was less likely in Europe than in the

Middle East’. Second, he argued that Pakistan, apart from having a

strategic position in the region, was a Muslim country, and hence had a

better chance of serving British interests in the Middle East than

India...”{Pani/24-5}

Since the First World War India’s primary usefulness to Britain was less

as a market for commercial exploitation and more in the field of war and

defence, and in maintaining and securing its Empire. Through India as the

base, and its British-Indian army, Britain controlled other countries in Asia.

It could ill-afford to altogether give up its two-century old Empire, without

having a firm foothold at least in part of India. That’s when it cooked up the

idea of Pakistan.

The West wanted to check the expansionist ambitions of communist

Russia and China towards the Middle-East and the Indian Ocean. How to

do that? The regions adjoining Russia and China had to be under their

influence: that is, north-western India bordering Russia and J&K. Pakistan

was willing to be an ally of the West in their cold war with the communists,

hence critical to their strategy, along with J&K; while India, with its little

likelihood of cooperating with the West in military matters, and forming an

alliance with them, given India’s anti-West dogma, Nehruvian pro-Russia

bend, and protestations of non-violence, was dispensable. The British

military establishment too had become a strong proponent of Pakistan on

account of its promise of cooperation in military matters. Pakistan was

actually midwifed by the UK and the US as a bulwark against Russia; and

that’s why they always came to its rescue lest it should fail.

Narendra Singh Sarila quotes in his book ‘The Shadow of the Great

Game: The Untold Story of India’s Partition’ a report of the British chiefs

of staff: “The area of Pakistan [West Pakistan or the northwest of India] is

strategically the most important in the continent of India and the majority of

our strategic requirements would be met...by an agreement with Pakistan

alone...”{Sar/28}{DG/17}

Once the British realised India would deny them military cooperation

after independence, they settled in favour of Pakistan, which was willing to

cooperate with them, be their lackey, and help them in securing the Middle

East and the Indian Ocean area. Yet another reason the British army and

bureaucracy was favourable towards Pakistan was that they were being

offered positions and employment in Pakistan.

“Field Marshal Lord Montgomery argued that it would be a tremendous

asset if ‘Pakistan, particularly the North-West’, remained within the

Commonwealth. The bases, airfields and ports in ‘North West India’ would

be invaluable…”{DG/16-17}

The UK would have had no difficulty if they were sure that India—

undivided India—after Independence, would serve as their ally. Had they

felt reassured on those issues critical to their national and foreign policy

interests, there would have been no Partition or the J&K imbroglio. What

did India gain out of Nehru’s socialism and pro-Soviet tilt? Nothing. India’s

economy went to dogs, and no one took India seriously in foreign affairs. It

was Nehru’s fads of socialism and pro-Soviet bend that led to Britain and

Western nations, including USA, going against India, and resulting in the

tragedy of partition, and the problem of Kashmir.

Had it been a wise Indian leadership that was adequately enlightened on

the international affairs, and the vested interests of Britain and the West,

and their Oil and Cold-war strategy, they would have been careful and

tactful enough to have reassured Britain, the US, and the West on their

cooperation (but, in practice, actually done what was in the best national

interest of India, after independence). And, in any case, being pro market-

economy, and pro-West, compared to being socialistic and pro-Russia (as

Nehru was), was far more beneficial for India. But, when, despite being

political leaders, you spend precious years in jail and outside hand-spinning

yarn, experimenting with nutrition and indigenous medicines, and with

truth, fasting, and non-violence, rather that deliberating on the crucial post-

independence issues of economy, poverty and prosperity, internal and

external security, and foreign policy, what can be expected?

Wrote Narendra Singh Sarila fittingly:

“But the Indian leaders remained plagued by the Indians’ age-old

weakness such as arrogance, inconsistency, often poor political

judgement and disinterest in foreign affairs and questions of

defence.”{Sar/405}

“Protected by British power for so long and then focused on a non-

violent struggle, the Indian leaders were ill prepared, as independence

dawned, to confront the power play in our predatory world. Their historic

disinterest in other countries’ aims and motives made things none the

easier. They had failed to see through the real British motivation [despite

Nehru’s claim as an internationalist and a foreign-affairs expert] for their

support to the Pakistan scheme and take remedial measures…” {Sar/406}

“By the end of 1946, they [Indian leaders] had been manoeuvred into

such a corner that if Sardar Patel had not stepped forward ‘to have a limb

amputated’, as he put it, and satisfy Britain, there was a danger of India’s

fragmentation, as Britain searched for military bases in the bigger

princely states by supporting their attempts to declare

independence.”{Sar/406}

Blunder–15 :

UNPLANNED & GROSSLY MISMANAGED PARTITION

Partition caused sudden displacement of about 14 million Hindus, Sikhs

and Muslims, loss of their properties; and murder and slaughter of an

estimated one to three million: there are no definite figures—an exercise for

a proper count was never carried out! Wrote Patrick French:

“The number of people killed during the creation of independent India

and Pakistan has never been established. It was in the interest of the

governments of Attlee, Jinnah and Nehru to play down the scale of the

massacres, since they all bore a measure of responsibility for what had

happened. …As Marn Singh, an eye specialist [a victim of Punjab

partition]… remembered: ‘Personally I believe it was the fault of

politicians, who were keen for power, especially that Mr Jinnah, who

hoped to gain a nation without even damaging the crease of his trousers,

like some lord of England.’”{PF/348, 351}

Trains carrying refugees from either side were looted, and passengers

were slaughtered. There was mass dishonouring, brutality and rapes. JA

Scott, the then British DIG of Police in Rawalpindi had stated: “I could

never believe that such barbarous acts as were committed on innocent

people in rural areas of Rawalpindi district could be possible in

Punjab.”{Bali/18}

Winston Churchill had accused Mountbatten of killing two million

Indians!{AA/12} Mountbatten’s critic Andrew Roberts had commented:

“Mountbatten deserved to be court-martialled on his return to

London.”{Tunz/252}

Once the partition was agreed upon in principle by all the concerned and

contending parties, it should have been carried out in a well thought-out,

planned and professional manner. That responsibility lay principally with

the British, and particularly with Viceroy Mountbatten, and with the heads

of the two governments—Nehru and Jinnah. Of course, the responsibility

also lay with the Congress, the Muslim League, and the other political

parties and organisations, and their leaders. Sadly, everyone failed the

people.

For such a hugely major operation like partition of a country, and

creation of a new country, no blue print was prepared, no planning was

done either to ensure security and safety of people and their property, or to

provide for their rehabilitation. It was just hurriedly and haphazardly put

through, exposing millions to grave risk.

The bitter, unfortunate truth was that having decided to quit India, the Raj

didn’t really care. They had already decided to withdraw British troops

from active service and repatriate them before the transfer of power. The

British were too much in a hurry to get out. If they could be here for about

two centuries to exploit and oppress, why not a few months more to secure

Indians, as a compensation? But, Mountbatten and the British were least

bothered about the Indians. They maintained only limited British troops to

secure the left-over British. Having decided to leave, the Raj didn’t wish to

risk British lives. If Hindus and Muslims indulged in killing, looting and

raping each other, so be it! Would demonstrate all the more how things

would degenerate without them! British colonialism was a hugely cruel,

greedy, selfish project. Why the British who had managed law and order

covering millions for many, many decades in India failed at this critical

juncture? Accusing the Raj of dereliction of duty, Sardar bitterly

complained to Mountbatten: “The British had little difficulty when it was a

question of putting down Indian freedom movements.”

The point, however, is why the Indian and the Pakistani leaders, whose

people were to be so frightfully affected, failed to read the writing on the

wall? That terrible things were bound to happen should have been very well

known to them after what happened on the ‘Direct Action Day’ in Calcutta

in August 1946, in Noakhali in East Bengal, and in Bihar, and in scores of

other places down the decades, including the most horrible Moplah

Rebellion of 1920s in Malabar, Kerala, where Muslims butchered Hindus!

Weren’t they aware that what actually happened was bound to happen if

they didn’t take sufficient care? What precaution and care did they take?

Expectedly, our clueless, non-violent Gandhian leaders had done

absolutely nothing to keep people safe. They could have heeded Dr BR

Ambedkar’s wise and elaborate plan in his book “Pakistan or the Partition

of India”{Amb3} given several years back on peaceful transfer of population .

But, with “Mahatma” and “scientifically-minded, rational” Nehru as

leaders, who would listen to the genuinely wise persons like Dr Ambedkar.

If things had been planned well and foreseen, there could have been an

agreement between the Congress and the Muslim League for a well-

designed protocol for smooth and orderly transfer of population (as

Ambedkar had detailed in his book{Amb3} ), as per the wishes of the

concerned families and groups. Further, if the time was deemed too short to

make adequate preparation for smooth transfer of power to the two

domains, partition and independence could have been delayed. Where was

the tearing hurry?

There were precedents to this proposal of population transfer: Muslim

Bulgarians were resettled in Turkey, and in exchange many Turks were

transferred to Bulgaria in pursuance of the Turko-Bulgarian Convention of

1913—about two and a half million people were thus resettled.{PG3} Another

Muslim-Christian exchange of population case was that under the Treaty of

Lausanne signed on 30 January 1923 between Turkey and Greece involving

about 1.6 million people.{URL74}

What is noteworthy is that the Muslim League leaders wanted “transfer

of population ”. Wrote Prafull Goradia: “The post-partition government of

Nehru turned a blind eye to the fact that the [Muslim] League had

demanded an exchange of population as an integral part of the country’s

vivisection. All the Muslims of Hindustan were to emigrate to Pakistan and

all non-Muslims were to come over to Hindustan. No less that eight leaders

of the Muslim League, namely, Jinnah, Feroze Khan Noon, Nawab of

Mamdot, Pit Ilahi Bux, Mohammad Ismail, II Chundrigar, Shaukat Hayat

Khan and Raja Ghaznafar Ali Khan, had demanded an exchange of

population.”{PG2/74}{PG4}

In an article, Prafull Goradia highlighted: “For the Muslim leaders

therefore the idea of a population transfer was neither novel nor surprising.

Even Prophet Muhammad had undertaken hijrat from Mecca to Madina

while founding Islam. No wonder then that Khan Iftikhar Hussain of

Mamdot had said that the exchange of population offered a very practical

solution for the problem of the Muslims, reported by Dawn, 3 December

1946. Pir Ilahi Bux, the Sindhi leader, had said that he welcomed an

exchange of population for the safety of the minorities, as it would put an

end to all communal disturbances as reported by Dawn, on 4 December

1946. So also felt Raja Ghazanfar Ali who later became Pakistan's envoy to

New Delhi. Dawn, of 19 December 1946. Reported his having asked for the

alteration of the population map of India... It was implicit in these

statements that the League objective was to undertake ethnic cleansing soon

after partition. That this was not mere conjecture was proved by the fact

that almost all Hindus were driven out from West Pakistan in a matter of

two to three years. Evidently, the League leadership had fears that ethnic

cleansing on their side would invite a similar action in Hindustan, causing

untold miseries to their Muslim brethren. In any case, the Dar-ul-Islam that

they were pursuing was for all Muslims of the subcontinent. Why should

those, who happened to be in Hindustan, be condemned to live indefinitely

in a hopeless Dar-ul-Harb? There were no stray threats either by Mamdot or

Pir. Jinnah, while addressing a press conference at Karachi on 25 November

1946, said that the authorities, both central and provincial, should

immediately take up the question of exchange of population, as reported by

Dawn on 26 November, 1946. Sir Feroze Khan Noon, who later rose to be

Prime Minister had earlier on 8 April 1946, threatened to re-enact the

murderous orgies of Chengez Khan and Halaqu Khan if non-Muslims took

up an obstructive attitude against population exchange. Ismail Chundrigar,

who also eventually rose to be Prime Minister of Pakistan, had said that the

British had no right to hand over Muslims to a subject people over whom

they had ruled for 500 years. Mohammad Ismail, a leader from Madras had

declared that the Muslims of India were in the midst of a jehad. Shaukat

Hayat Khan, son of the Prime Minister of Punjab, Sir Sikander Hayat Khan,

had threatened, while the British were still in India, of a rehearsal of what

the Muslims would do to the Hindus eventually. The point that came

through clearly was that transfer of population was an integral part of the

demand for Pakistan. ”{PG3}{PG4}

Gandhi and Nehru would have done a genuine favour to the Muslims if

they had facilitated their emigration to Dar-ul-Islam (Pakistan), rather than

condemning them to Dar-ul-Harb (India)—for their religion commanded so,

and because many poor Muslims did not have the means to emigrate. Sadly,

Gandhi and Nehru did not really understand Islam or the Muslim

psychology—and, in their hubris, chose to impose their immature,

unrealistic ideas, creating indescribable problems both for the Muslims in

India and for the non-Muslims in Pakistan.

Further, for the consequent Partition mayhem why those responsible—

the leaders on either side—have not been singled out and made

accountable? Why the blame has been put on general public on either side,

and their inhumanity? How could Mountbatten, the main person

responsible, escape the blame, and lord it out? Why was compensation not

demanded from the British, the actual party responsible? If what is

described below was possible, why thousands were allowed to be brutalised

and slaughtered? It is from “Empires of the Indus” by Alice Albinia:

“In 1947, Hameeda Akhtar Husain Raipuri was a young mother… She

came to Karachi at Partition with her family from Aligarh… As the wife

of a civil servant in the Education Ministry, Hameeda’s introduction to

Karachi was comparatively orderly. The train that brought her from Delhi

was one of the first to be attacked; but it was full of government

employees, and thus was well defended by the army. ‘A gentleman was

waiting at the station at Karachi with the keys to our flat in Napier

Barracks,’ she says, ‘another was holding out a ration card.’ So the

family settled into their new country, full of hope…”{AA/15}

That is, had all trains been well-guarded, like in the above case,

thousands of deaths, loot and rapes could have been easily avoided.

Similarly, had proper planning been done, and had a bigger and stronger

military, para-military, police or armed volunteer force deployed well in

advance, with political leaders, social workers and volunteers to assist them,

most of the other tragedies could also have been avoided.

Instead of doing the above, Mountbatten and his British staff had done

the opposite—they had ensured that all the British troops were withdrawn

before the partition. This is what Sir Evan Meredith Jenkins, the last

governor of the Punjab, had advised Mountbatten (who too was of similar

opinion): “I think it will be wise to avoid postponing the relief [withdrawal]

of British troops for too long. It would be awkward if trouble on a large

scale started while the relief was in progress. My own advice would

therefore be to make the change before the end of July [1947].”{Wolp3/165}

Further, why shouldn’t Mountbatten, Nehru, and the Congress have

planned for augmenting the strength of the police and army by induction of

Indians. Well-trained returning INA soldiers were readily available. But, the

British and the Congress (especially Nehru) bias against anything remotely

related to Netaji Subhas and his INA came in the way!

Rather than ensuring sufficiency of troops to control possible trouble,

Nehru had grandly and irresponsibly declared: “I would rather have every

village in India go up in flames than keep a single British soldier in India a

moment longer than necessary.” But, if Nehru was happy having the highest

post of the Governor General (till June 1948), and the highest posts in the

Army with the British after independence, why not the soldiers to save poor

citizens?

Blunder–16 :

NO WORTHWHILE POLICY FORMULATIONS!

Nehru, Gandhi and other Congress leaders had all the time in the world

prior to independence to formulate all relevant national policies for the

post-independence period. But, did they do so? NO. From 1915 onwards,

when Gandhi returned from South Africa, the top Gandhian leaders had 32

long years till independence in 1947 to study, discuss, argue, and thrash out

all issues vital to independent India.

Yet, among the greatest weaknesses of the Freedom Movement was the

failure of the Congress to formulate an enlightened constitution suited to

India much prior to 1947. Not just the verbose one full of legalese, but also

a short lucid one readable and understandable by non-experts, like the

American constitution. After independence, it should have been taught in

schools as a compulsory subject.

Of course, a much greater weakness of the Freedom Movement was the

failure of the Congress to formulate well thought-out policies on economy,

finance, taxation, agriculture, industries, education, science and technology,

culture, language, administration, law and justice, internal security, external

security, foreign policies, and so on, well in advance of the freedom in

1947. They should have also studied how the Western nations, especially

the US, had managed to drastically reduce poverty, and became prosperous,

and how India could emulate them after gaining freedom. Even if there

could not be agreement on various issues, differing options with their pros

and cons, along with practical examples from various countries, should

have been documented as a guide for future. Expert teams should have been

formed with such an end in mind. Finance for the study-teams should have

been arranged. There was enough talent to deploy. There were enough

financiers like Birla and others to back them. There was no dearth of time

or money.

Most of the leaders who were jailed over long periods had the additional

advantage of undisturbed time at their disposal to read, study, think, discuss

and thrash out details on various aspects related to the future constitution

and policies. Twelve top Congress leaders—Vallabhbhai Patel, Nehru,

Maulana Azad, Kriplani, GB Pant, Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Narendra Dev,

Asaf Ali, Shankarrao Deo, PC Ghosh, Syed Mahmud, and Hare Krushna

Mahtab—were in Ahmednagar Fort jail for about three years from 1942 to

1945 as VIP-prisoners. But that overlong period of three years generated no

short or detailed plans or policies or expert-studies on anything of relevance

to the immediate or mid-term or long-term future of India, or even on the

burning problem of the day: way forward towards freedom! Gandhi, Nehru,

Patel, and other top Congress leaders spent a number of years in the British

jails where (unlike the revolutionaries and others who were whipped or

tortured, and were deprived of the basic facilities) free from any

compulsory labour or torture or hardship, they had the facilities of reading

and writing and discussions. Yet, they hardly produced a work which could

be considered of worthwhile practical use and implementation after

independence.

In jail, Gandhi indulged in his fads of naturopathy, nutrition, fasting,

enema, and medicinal quackery; and in flood of words through innumerable

letters and articles that didn’t really contribute much to what really

mattered. When not in jail, Gandhi enjoyed playing dictator in his ashrams

making life difficult for the inmates, and engaging people in all kind of

time-pass activities like spinning yarn and so on.

Collected works and other writings of Gandhian leaders, including

Gandhi and Nehru, contain no serious discussions on any of the crucial

topics listed earlier, and the most critical of all—the economic policies. It

was as if they had no interest in ascertaining how to make India prosperous

after independence. It was as if Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Friedrich

Hayek, and host of other notable economists did not exist for them. It was

as if the study of economics and how to manage a modern state was

irrelevant for them.

As became obvious during Nehru’s post-independence era, despite

“Glimpses of World History” India miserably failed in foreign affairs,

defence and external security, and despite “Discovery of India” India failed

to discover its forte, and became a basket case. Other leaders didn’t help

much either in defining well before independence what India’s future

policies should be. That gave Nehru a free ride; and he royally blundered

unchecked. Of course, Patel was able to limit Nehru’s blunders as long as

he was alive.

Wrote Rustamji: “Another shortcoming that could be mentioned is that in

those years we did not think that the freedom would come so soon [Given

Gandhian methods, independence was always a distant dream—and when it

finally came, it was NOT thanks to Gandhi-Nehru-Congress: pl. check

Blunder#12]. So, we never prepared, studied or made arrangements for

running governments in the proper way.”{Rust/216}

Commented Nirad Chaudhuri very appropriately: “…In the Indian

nationalist movement there was not only a total absence of positive and

constructive ideas, but even of thinking. These shortcomings were to have

their disastrous consequence in 1947… The intellectual poverty of the

nationalist movement gradually became intellectual bankruptcy, but nobody

perceived that because the hatred of the British rule left no room for rational

ideas… Over the whole period with which I am dealing [1921-52] none of

them [Gandhi, Nehru…] put forth a single idea about what was to follow

British rule… What was even more astonishing, none of these leaders were

qualified to put forward any positive idea because none of them had any

worthwhile knowledge of Indian history, life, and culture…”{NC/31-2}

2. INTEGRATION OF THE PRINCELY STATES

Blunder–17 :

INDEPENDENT INDIA DEPENDENT UPON THE BRITISH!

NEHRU PLUMPED FOR THE BRITISH MOUNTBATTEN

God only knows why India chose to appoint Mountbatten, a British, as

the Governor General (GG) of India after independence! Jinnah didn’t do

that blunder—he himself became the GG of Pakistan. Mountbatten as GG

managed what the Raj desired—to the detriment of India. It was thanks to

Nehru that Mountbatten became the GG. Why did the freedom-fighters

choose a foreigner, a British, for the top post? Weren’t competent Indians

available? If Jinnah as GG could manage Pakistan, couldn’t an Indian as

GG manage India?

Nehru had adopted Mountbatten as his guru and guide. Reflects much

both on Nehru’s colonial mindset, and his judgement of people. Where

Nehru was not readily amenable to what the Raj/Mountbatten wanted,

Mountbatten reportedly used his wife Edwina to get Nehru around.

Maulana Azad, a pro-Nehru person, expressed bewilderment in his

autobiography as to how a person like Jawaharlal was won over by Lord

Mountbatten; mentions Nehru’s weakness of being impulsive and amenable

to personal influences, and wonders if the Lady Mountbatten factor was

responsible for certain [improper] decisions.{Azad/198}

Mountbatten was a representative of Britain, and it was natural for him,

rather, expected of him, to safeguard and promote the interests of Britain;

and keeping the British Government informed of the goings on, including

confidential matters. India and Pakistan also had British army chiefs. In

case the Indian leaders felt that having a British GG, and a British C-in-C,

did help in some way, they should have accounted for the fact that it could

also be counter-productive in many cases—and it did prove to be so. Their

basic allegiance being to Britain, between them, these British were able to

manipulate matters—many contrary to the interests of India.

MOUNTBATTEN & THE PARTITION MAYHEM

Much is made of Mountbatten, but he had been a failure in most of his

past assignments. He belonged to navy, and in the Admiralty he was long

known as the “Master of Disaster”.{Tunz/156}

Mountbatten was widely held responsible for his gross mismanagement

resulting in the horrifying scale of the partition mayhem. Please check

Blunder#15. Winston Churchill had accused Mountbatten of killing two

million Indians!{AA/12} Mountbatten’s critic Andrew Roberts had

commented: “Mountbatten deserved to be court-martialled on his return to

London.”{Tunz/252}

After the partition and its tragedy, there had been three assassination

attempts on Jinnah by the aggrieved victims. Jinnah was so rattled he had

remarked that the person most responsible for the disaster of partition was

Dickie Mountbatten.{Tunz/301}

Wrote Maulana Azad:

“I also asked Lord Mountbatten to take into consideration the likely

consequences of the partition of the country. Even without partition there

were riots in Calcutta, Noakhali, Bihar, Bombay and Punjab… If the

country was divided in such an atmosphere there would be rivers of

blood flowing in different parts of the country and the British would be

responsible for such carnage… Without a moment’s hesitation Lord

Mountbatten replied, ‘At least on this question I shall give you complete

assurance. I shall see to it that there is no bloodshed or riot. I am a

soldier, not a civilian. Once partition is accepted in principle, I shall issue

orders to see that there are no communal disturbances… If there should

be slightest agitation, I shall adopt measures to nip the trouble in the

bud… I shall order the Army and the Air Force to act and use tanks and

aeroplanes to suppress anybody who wants to create trouble.’”{Azad/207}

Wrote Durga Das: “I concluded my report by stating that Mountbatten

had hurried through with partition without making sure that the Boundary

Force would be able to maintain peace.”{DD/264}

MOUNTBATTEN MACHINATIONS IN J&K, JUNAGADH & HYDERABAD

Britain wanted Kashmir, a strategic territory, to be under their influence.

That was possible if it was either independent or with Pakistan, which was

pro-West. Towards this aim, Mountbatten ensured that as GG he did not

remain just a titular head. He manipulated to get himself appointed as the

‘Head of the Defence Committee of India’ ensuring that the C-in-C of both

the Indian and the Pakistani Army and the Supreme Commander,

Auchinleck, reported to him. In that capacity, Mountbatten secretively co-

ordinated with the transitional British Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan

Army; had private strategy sessions with the transitional British C-in-C of

the Indian Army, without the knowledge of the Indian leaders; and

manipulated to the extent feasible, decisions and actions in the direction the

British Government wanted.

Sarila points out in ‘The Shadow of the Great Game’:

“Another factor that distinctly influenced the situation was Nehru’s offer

to Mountbatten to chair the Defence Committee of the Indian Cabinet. It

was this committee and not the Indian Cabinet as a whole that made

decisions on Kashmir war policy. This power gave the governor-general

enormous power to influence the course of fighting.”{Sar/357}

Nehru was mainly responsible for having Mountbatten appointed as the

GG of independent India; and was perhaps the only factor in making him

the Head of the Defence Committee.

Wrote Durga Das in ‘India from Curzon to Nehru & After’:

“...Patel added that Nehru was unduly amenable to Mountbatten’s

influence. Nehru had ‘always leaned on someone’. He was under Bapu’s

protective wing and ‘now he leans on Mountbatten’.”{DD/240}

The role of Mountbatten in the integration of the three states that created

problems—Junagadh, Hyderabad and J&K—was dubious. Where the

British interests were not affected—in respect of the other Princely States—

he did try to help India. But, where the British interests clashed with the

Indian interests, he helped the British interests. It was Mountbatten who

made Nehru refer the J&K issue to the UN, thus internationalising a

domestic issue. Mountbatten attempted to also refer the Junagadh and the

Hyderabad cases to the UN.

Blunder–18 :

NEHRU REFUSED J&K ACCESSION WHEN OFFERED!

By June-July 1947 Maharaja Hari Singh of J&K had begun to take steps

towards final accession with India, including replacement of his pro-Pak

PM Ram Chandra Kak with Mehr Chand Mahajan, a lawyer, and a

Congress nominee on the Boundary Commission, who later became the

Chief Justice of India. Looking to all this, Nehru should have created a

conducive atmosphere, and taken Hari Singh into confidence, so that

Maharaja’s decision to accede to India could be expedited, and all the

subsequent troubles on account of his late accession would have been

avoided. Instead, Nehru acted adversarial with the Maharaja.

“There have been suggestions that the Maharaja had decided in August

1947, or certainly by mid-September, that he had no option but to join

India, and that he was just waiting for the best moment and the most

advantageous terms,” wrote Andrew Whitehead in ‘A Mission in Kashmir’.

{AW/101}

When in August–September 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh indeed offered

Kashmir's accession to India; most unbelievably, it was refused by Nehru,

who first wanted Sheikh Abdullah to be freed and installed as the prime

minister of the State—something not acceptable to the Maharaja. Was it not

queer? The nation being favoured with accession laying down conditions,

rather than the state agreeing to merge! Nehru’s ways, driven by his hubris,

were indeed bizarre and alarming!! (In sharp contrast you had Jinnah

offering a signed blank sheet along with his own fountain pen to Maharajas

of Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, and Bikaner to put down their conditions for

accession to Pakistan, saying: “You can fill in all your conditions.”{BK/337} )

Had the accession been accepted, the Indian army could have been

deployed in Kashmir well in advance of the Oct-47 invasion by the

Pakistani-raiders, preventing both the creation of the PoK, and the terrible

tragedy of loot, killings and rapes.

States Sarila in ‘The Shadow of the Great Game’:

“Mountbatten added: ‘He [Sardar Patel] has also attacked Nehru for the

first time saying “I regret our leader has followed the lofty ideas into the

skies and has no contact left with earth or reality”’...This outburst

probably reflected Patel’s frustration with Nehru at the time, for refusing

to accept the Maharaja of Kashmir’s accession to India unless and until a

government under Sheikh Abdullah was installed.”{Sar/370}

It was undemocratic and irresponsible of Nehru, and an illegal act, not to

have obtained the concurrence of the cabinet before taking such a major

decision of not accepting J&K accession. It is quite likely that Mountbatten

had dissuaded him from accepting accession, as the British wanted J&K to

accede to Pakistan.

Blunder–19 :

ALLOWING KASHMIR TO BE ALMOST LOST

The Pakistani raiders were almost on the outskirts of Srinagar by 22

October 1947, and the Maharaja desperately sought help from India.

Looking to the precarious situation, Sardar Patel proposed sending the

Indian Army to J&K. However, Mountbatten insisted that unless the

Instrument of Accession was signed by J&K in favour of India (the offer

earlier refused by Nehru [Blunder#18], most likely at the instance of

Mountbatten himself!), India should not send army to Kashmir, and Nehru

concurred.

On Friday, 24 October 1947, the Pakistani raiders attacked the Mohore

Power House causing black out in Srinagar. Defence Committee of India,

headed by Mountbatten, met the next morning on Saturday, 25 October

1947, and rather than ordering action to save Srinagar, directed VP Menon,

Sam Manekshaw and a few senior military officers to fly to Srinagar the

same day to check the position first hand. This was actually a deliberate

ploy of Mountbatten to pass time and not allow counter-action by India, and

let Pakistan gain an upper hand by force, as the British desired—because

Mountbatten would have known through the British C-in-C of Pakistan

what Pakistan was up to. (C-in-C of both India and Pakistan were British!)

VP Menon and company flew to Srinagar and found the state of affairs to

be worse than what was reported. They advised Maharaja Hari Singh to

hurry to the safety of Jammu. Hari Singh drove the same night to Jammu,

200 kilometres away. MC Mahajan, the premier of J&K, VP Menon, Sam

Manekshaw, and colleagues returned to Delhi from Srinagar early next

morning on Sunday, 26 October 1947, and reported the desperate situation

to the Defence Committee. They advised that it would not be possible to

save Srinagar and its people unless the troops were immediately air-lifted.

Even the Srinagar air-strip was in danger of being imminently occupied by

the raiders, in which case even that only possibility of air-lifting troops

would close.

Notwithstanding the desperate situation, and knowing that unless help

was sent immediately, both the Kashmiri Muslims and the Pandits of

Srinagar would be butchered by the Pakistani raiders, and the Valley of

Kashmir would be lost to Pakistan, Mountbatten still insisted that the

Instrument of Accession be first signed in favour of India. Nehru simply

went along with his guru Mountbatten. It didn’t seem illegal to Mountbatten

and Nehru that the raiders backed by the Pakistani army had invaded J&K,

which had not signed any Instrument of Accession in Pakistan’s favour; but

it seemed illegal to them to send Indian army help to save people getting

looted, raped and butchered!

As desired, VP Menon flew to Jammu the same day—Sunday, 26

October 1947—to have the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja

Hari Singh, which he did. The Instrument of Accession signed by Hari

Singh on Sunday, 26 October 1947, and brought back by VP Menon, was

accepted by Mountbatten on Monday, 27 October 1947. With the signing of

the Instrument and its acceptance, J&K legally became a part of India, and

it became incumbent upon India to defend its territory, and throw out the

raiders.

In the Defence Committee meeting held on Monday, 27 October 1947

Sam Manekshaw apprised the members of the Military situation. He said

the raiders were hardly seven to nine kilometres from Srinagar; and unless

the troops were flown in immediately, Srinagar would be lost, because

going by road would take days, and once the raiders got to the airport and

Srinagar, it would not be possible to fly-in the troops. He further informed

that everything was ready at the airport, and the troops could be

immediately air-lifted, once the orders were issued.

However, Mountbatten—serving the pro-Pakistani British interests—

tried to stall sending the Indian army, saying it was too late, raiders being

already at the door of Srinagar. But, who made it late in the first place—

Mountbatten himself! As usual, Nehru prevaricated.

Notably, even when the need for action became urgent, “Mountbatten

threw his weight against any precipitate action, emphasising the need for

further information,” writes C Dasgupta in his book, ‘War and Diplomacy

in Kashmir 1947-48’{DG/45} . Even after further information was available

through VP Menon and Sam Manekshaw, who had been specially flown to

Srinagar for the purpose on 25 October 1947, and who advised urgent airlift

of troops, Mountbatten showed reluctance. Writes Dasgupta “...the service

chiefs [all British], supported by Mountbatten, sought to dissuade the

ministers from an airlift on the grounds that it involved great risks and

dangers.”{DG/47}

Sardar Patel finally intervened. Recounted Sam Manekshaw, who later

became the first Field Marshal in the Indian army, in his interview with

Prem Shankar Jha{Jha1}:

“At the morning meeting he [VP Menon/Patel] handed over the

(Accession ) thing. Mountbatten turned around and said, ‘come on

Manekji (He called me Manekji instead of Manekshaw), what is the

military situation?’ I gave him the military situation, and told him that

unless we flew in troops immediately, we would have lost Srinagar,

because going by road would take days, and once the tribesmen got to the

airport and Srinagar, we couldn't fly troops in. Everything was ready at

the airport. As usual Nehru talked about the United Nations, Russia,

Africa, God almighty, everybody, until Sardar Patel lost his temper. He

said, ‘Jawaharlal, do you want Kashmir, or do you want to give it away.’

He (Nehru) said, ‘Of course, I want Kashmir.’ Then he (Patel) said

‘Please give your orders.’ And before he could say anything Sardar Patel

turned to me and said, ‘You have got your orders.’ I walked out, and we

started flying in troops...”{Jha1/135}

It has also been reported that the J&K premier, Mehar Chand Mahajan,

even threatened to proceed to Karachi and offer Kashmir to Jinnah, if India

could not secure safety of the people of J&K. Despite tremendous practical

difficulties, lack of preparation, and the short notice, the Indian Army rose

to the occasion and chased the raiders out of the valley. It is worth

factoring-in the fact that had the Indian army not reached Srinagar in time,

there would have been a large scale massacre and mayhem by the Pakistani

raiders in Srinagar and surrounding areas, which in turn would have had

repercussions all over India. But, Mountbatten and the British didn’t seem

to value Indian lives. British were serving pro-Pakistani British interests.

But, Nehru? Had Sardar Patel not acted, and had it been left to Nehru and

Mountbatten, the whole of Kashmir would have been lost to Pakistan, and

the locals would have been butchered.

Blunder–20 :

UNCONDITIONAL J&K ACCESSION MADE CONDITIONAL

Was the ‘Instrument of Accession’ signed by Maharaja Hari Singh for

J&K different from the other Princely States, and did it incorporate some

special provisions? NO. The Instrument of Accession was standard and

common for all Princely States. There was no provision in it for any ruler to

add or subtract conditions. It was required to be signed unchanged.

Enclosing his signed ‘Instrument of Accession’ in the standard format

(like for all the other princely states), Maharaja Hari Singh wrote to the

Governor-General of India Mountbatten on 26 October 1947:

“With the conditions obtaining at present in my state and the great

emergency of the situation as it exists, I have no option but to ask for

help from the Indian Dominion. Naturally they cannot send the help

asked for by me without my State acceding to the Dominion of India. I

have accordingly decided to do so and I attach the Instrument of

Accession for acceptance by your Government.”{Jag/86}

With regard to J&K, it is worth re-emphasising that (a)the Instrument of

Accession signed was no different from those signed by the other Princely

States; (b)it was signed by Hari Singh unconditionally; and (c)it was

accepted by the Governor General, Lord Mountbatten, unconditionally.

That is, the whole process was no different from the one that applied to the

other 547 Princely States that acceded to India (please note that the other 14

of the 562 had acceded to Pakistan).

Through a separate letter, however, Mountbatten advised Maharaja Hari

Singh that the accession was subject to reference to the people of J&K:

“In the special circumstances mentioned by Your Highness, my

Government have decided to accept the accession of Kashmir State to the

Dominion of India. Consistent with their policy that, in the case of any

State where the issue of accession has been the subject of dispute, the

question of accession should be decided in accordance with the wishes of

the people of the State, it is my Government’s wish that, as soon as law

and order have been restored in Kashmir and her soil cleared of the

invader, the question of the State’s accession should be settled by a

reference to the people...”{AW/114}{Jag/86}

Notably, the Maharaja had put no conditions on accession. In fact, even

Sheikh Abdullah, who had favoured accession to India, never insisted on

this condition—rather, he wanted it to be unconditional, lest any uncertainty

should remain.

Who gave Mountbatten the authority to write such a letter? Who was he

to make the accession conditional? Was he still the Viceroy of the British

India serving the British interests, or was he the Governor General of

independent India? Why did Nehru not object? Why had the Indian

Cabinet and leaders, particularly Nehru, not made it clear to him that he

could not act on his own on critical matters—that he had to take the

permission of the cabinet? One can understand conditions being stipulated

by the party offering you the favour of accession. But, for the party being

favoured with accession to stipulate conditions—that’s absurd.

Had it been a Governor General who was an Indian like say

Dr Ambedkar or Dr Rajendra Prasad or Rajagopalachari or Mahatma

Gandhi (Wonder why he didn’t wish to take on any official responsibility

after independence, and leave the top post to a British!) himself, and not a

British like Mountbatten, would he have tried to make the accession

conditional? And, had he done so, would the Indian public have ever

forgiven him? Or, was it that Nehru acquiesced to writing of such a letter by

Mountbatten? (—yet another blunder?) Even if the deed was done without

Nehru’s knowledge (unlikely), Nehru should have objected to it and should

have got it annulled or withdrawn.

STIPULATION OF ‘REFERENCE TO PEOPLE’: ILLEGAL

The Indian Independence Act 1947 enacted by the British Parliament

also incorporated the Memorandum on States’ Treaties and Paramountcy of

12 May 1946 as per which the princely states were to regain full

sovereignty with the creation of the two dominions of India and Pakistan

from the British India on 15 August 1947, with the ruler of the Princely

State being the ONLY authority to offer accession to India or Pakistan, or to

remain independent, regardless of the religious composition of the people of

that state, there being NO provision for ‘reference to the people’ or

plebiscite.

Therefore, with the signing of the Instrument of Accession

unconditionally by the Maharaja of J&K on 26 October 1947 in favour of

India, J&K’s accession to India was full, final, irrevocable and totally legal

as per the International Law. Legally, that separate letter of Mountbatten

(please see above) made absolutely NO difference. In fact, Mountbatten’s

action of writing the above letter was unconstitutional and illegal. Even

Nehru had NO legal authority to approve of such a letter. What is more,

there was NO cabinet sanction for it!

India should have stuck to this incontestable legal position of the

irrevocable accession of J&K to India, like for the other 547 states, on the

strength of the signing of the Instrument of Accession. This is what Sardar

Patel strongly advocated. Even US considered ours as an ironclad legal

position in 1948. Writes C Dasgupta in his book, ‘War and Diplomacy in

Kashmir 1947-48’: “The fundamental difference between the American and

British positions lay in the fact that the United States was prepared in 1947-

48 to recognise India’s sovereign rights in Kashmir.”{DG/121} However, Nehru

failed to leverage on that.

The funny thing is that the "reference to the people" or plebiscite was

requested neither by Maharaja Hari Singh, nor by Sheikh Abdullah, nor by

the people of J&K, nor even by Jinnah(!!) at that time! It was only thanks to

Mountbatten and Nehru!{Hing/200}

Blunder–21 :

INTERNATIONALISATION OF THE KASHMIR ISSUE

Nehru unnecessarily internationalised what was purely an internal issue

by taking the J&K issue to the UN, again under the influence of the British

Mountbatten. Wrote V Shankar in ‘My Reminiscences of Sardar Patel,

Volume 1’:

“Lord Mountbatten persuaded Pandit Nehru to make a broadcast in

which he was to announce that the accession would be subject to a

plebiscite under the UN auspices. This was scheduled at 8.30pm on 28

October [1947]. Sardar used to insist on seeing the texts of important

broadcasts including those of the prime minister. Pandit Nehru had a very

busy day and could not send the text before 8.15pm. Sardar read it and

noticed the embarrassing commitment. He tried to contact Pandit Nehru

but the latter had left for the Broadcasting House. Sardar then

commissioned me to go to the Broadcasting House and ask Pandit Nehru

to delete the offending phrase 'under UN auspices'...”{Shan1}

However, by the time Shankar reached the place, the Mountbatten-

inspired deed was done by Nehru. It was imprudent on the part of Nehru to

have made this commitment of “plebiscite under UN auspices” at the

instance of a British, Lord Mountbatten, having his own axe to grind,

without taking the cabinet and the patriotic Indians who mattered—Sardar

Patel and others—into confidence! Wrote the veteran Congressman DP

Mishra:

“Soon after, I heard Nehru’s voice on All India Radio at Nagpur,

committing the Government of India to the holding of plebiscite in

Kashmir. As from my talk with Patel, I had received the impression that

the signature of the Maharaja had finally settled the Kashmir issue. I was

surprised by Nehru’s announcement. When I visited Delhi next, I

pointedly asked Patel whether the decision to hold a plebiscite in

Kashmir was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet. He sighed and shook his

head. It was evident that Nehru had acted on Mountbatten’s advice, and

had ignored his colleagues.”

Reference to the UN was something Sardar Patel, Dr Ambedkar and

others were against, however, Nehru again went ahead with it publicly in

his radio broadcast on 2 November 1947. Despite sane advice, Nehru

scored a self-goal for India by formally referring the J&K matter to the UN

on 1 January 1948. With the issue internationalised, India suffered greatly,

both domestically and internationally. It became like the sword of

Damocles. The UK, the US and their allies, led by the UK, began playing

politics of favouring Pakistan over India, ignoring the fact of Pakistani

aggression in J&K.

That the member-nations of the UNSC acted in their own selfish national

interests and engaged in power-game was apparently not known to the

foreign-affairs expert Nehru. As usual, Nehru himself realised his blunder

after the act. Nehru regretted the Kashmir issue “has been raised to an

international level… by reference to the Security Council of the UN and

most of the great powers are intensely interested in what happens in

Kashmir… [Kashmir issue] has given us a great deal of trouble… the

attitude of the great powers has been astonishing. Some of them have

shown active partisanship for Pakistan… We feel we have not been given a

square deal.”{BK2/159}

IN ADDITION TO TOWING THE BRITISH MOUNTBATTEN LINE,

DID NEHRU’S MARXIST-COMMUNIST BEND DRIVE THE PLEBISCITE DECISION?

Commented Sita Ram Goel: “Pandit Nehru promised a plebiscite in

Kashmir without consulting any of his cabinet colleagues or even Mahatma

Gandhi. I refer … to the Memorandum which the CPI [Communist Party of

India] had submitted to the British Cabinet Mission and in which Kashmir

was described as a separate nationality which should be given the right of

self-determination to the point of becoming a sovereign State. The CPI had

denounced Kashmir's accession to India as an imperialist annexation in

early 1948. The Indian army in Kashmir had been described as an army

of occupation in all official Soviet publications at that time. So Pandit

Nehru's communist conscience suffered persistent pricks. He not only

promised a plebiscite but also ordered the Indian Army to stop its

triumphant march into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He changed his stand

on a plebiscite in Kashmir only when the Soviet Union and the CPI had

changed their stand and come out in support of the Indian case in Kashmir

after Pakistan entered into an alliance with America. And he let loose a

lying campaign against the West which was only reminding him half-

heartedly of the plebiscite promise he had himself made earlier.”{SRG2/171}

Blunder–22 :

INEPT HANDLING OF THE J&K ISSUE IN THE UN

India and Pakistan presented their cases at the UN in January 1948. The

Indian case was presented by Gopalaswami Aiyangar, Minister for Kashmir

Affairs, specifically appointed by Nehru in his cabinet. Aiyangar was the

leader of the Indian team that also included Sheikh Abdullah. Quipped

Chaudhry Sir Muhammad Zafrullah Khan (1893-1985), the Pakistani

representative in the UN, when he came to know about Gopalaswami

Aiyangar as India’s representative: “You are offering me Kashmir on a

platter.”{BK/387}

It is worth noting that Zafrullah Khan had an illustrious career. Educated

at London’s King’s College, he had been a member of the All-India Muslim

League, and had served as its president between 1931 and 1932. He was

the Minister of Railway of British India in 1935. He sat on the British

Viceroy's Executive Council as its Muslim member between 1935 and

1941. He represented India at the League of Nations in Geneva in 1939. He

was the Agent-General of British India to China in 1942. He became judge

at the Federal Court of India. He was the foreign minister of Pakistan

(1947-54), the president for the UN General Assembly (1962), and the

judge (1954-61, 1964-73), vice-president (1958-61) and the president

(1970-73) of the International Court of Justice.

(Incidentally, Zafrullah Khan was an Ahmadiyya, like Abdus Salam

(1926–1996), a Pakistani theoretical physicist, who shared the 1979 Nobel

Prize in Physics. Abdus Salam left Pakistan in 1974 in protest against the

passage of the parliamentary bill declaring the Ahmadiyya Community as

NOT-Islamic. Jinnah and Aga Khan, both Shias, were the prime movers of

Pakistan. Shias too are at the receiving end in Pakistan.)

Expectedly, while Zafrullah Khan’s presentation was brilliant, and

received all-round praise, that of Aiyangar’s was an unmitigated disaster!

Earlier, instead of Aiyangar, the name of Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, the

then Secretary-General (senior-most position) in the Ministry of External

Affairs and certainly a much more capable person for the purpose, was

suggested; but, on account of opposition he was dropped, as he was known

to have been too close to the British during the pre-independence period.

{Akb3/129} But then, why was he made the Secretary-General by Nehru in the

first place!

Sardar Patel was opposed to Gopalaswami Aiyangar leading the Indian

team in the UN. He considered him to be not competent enough. Patel had

instead suggested the name of CP Ramaswami Iyer, who had been the

Diwan of Travancore. CP, as he was called, was a very competent

intellectual, statesman and a diplomat, with many foreign contacts in the

UK and the US. He would have presented India’s case effectively. But,

Nehru ignored Patel’s advice, and stuck to Gopalaswami Aiyangar. Here is

a tell-tale description of what happened in the UN, as told by Shakunthala

Jagannathan, CP’s granddaughter:

“I was a student living in New York, when the question of Kashmir came

up in the U.N. Accompanied by several Indian and American friends, I

attended the Security council session, oozing with confidence on India’s

stand. First came Sir Zafrullah Khan’s impassioned and brilliant speech

on behalf of Pakistan which was powerful enough to shake up our

confidence. When he sat down, we Indians breathed a sigh of relief. The

Indian delegation was then asked to present their case. The delegate

concerned put up his hand, stood up, and said, “I protest!”… We had

expected that our case, so much stronger, would shake up the U.N.!

Instead our presentation on that day resulted in a debacle, right before our

eyes...”{SJ/45-46}

Yet another wrong choice of Nehru was to include Sheikh Abdullah in

the Indian delegation. Wrote Howard Schaffer: “The Indians had made

Abdullah a member of their UN delegation, no doubt in the expectation that

he would be an effective spokesman for India’s cause. They could not have

calculated that he would undercut their position by calling for Kashmir’s

independence in a private conversation with Austin. Apparently caught by

surprise, the ambassador gave Abdullah no encouragement...”{Sch}

Incidentally, Warren R. Austin was the US permanent representative—their

ambassador—to the UN.

Nehru’s initial blunder was to take an internal, domestic matter of India

to the UN, and make it international. However, having done that blunder, it

was expected of Nehru to put his best foot forward, and win the case for

India. Unfortunately for India, Nehru obliged Pakistan with a follow-up

blunder: appointing an incompetent to present India’s case!

Blunder–23 :

POK THANKS TO NEHRU

It was thanks to Nehru’s wrong decision that ‘Pakistan Occupied

Kashmir’ (PoK) came into existence, when the Indian army was on the

verge of getting the whole of J&K vacated. Let’s look at the two concrete

cases from among the many feats of daring and bravery by the Indian army.

Pakistani raiders’ determined bid to occupy Ladakh was frustrated by the

superior Indian strategy of airlifting troops to Leh. Air Commodore Mehar

Chand flew his plane amazingly to 23,000 feet above sea-level—without

oxygen—on an unchartered course to land his plane, with troops, at Leh at

the height of about 12000 feet!

Another daring feat was that of Major-General Thimayya. He took his

tanks to a height of about 12000 feet on the snow-capped Zojila Pass—

something unique in history, as nobody had taken tanks to such heights and

in such hazardous conditions before—and routed the enemy, destroying all

enemy bunkers.

Incidentally, it was this brave and competent Thimayya who was

humiliated by Krishna Menon, when he was Defence Minister in Nehru’s

cabinet, forcing Thimayya to resign! Later, after Thimayya withdrew his

resignation at the instance of Nehru, even Nehru behaved with him in a way

that amounted to his double humiliation!! (Blunder#125)

Thanks to the Indian Army, the raiders were forced to retreat, and were

on the run. This war, started by Pakistan in October 1947, lasted 15 months,

and ended on 1 January 1949.

HOW NEHRU ALLOWED CREATION OF POK

The capture of Muzzafarabad, now the capital of PoK, was imminent.

The Army, however, was ordered to suspend all offensive operations with

effect from 1 January 1949, even though the enemy did not cease fighting.

The Indian Army was very disappointed by the decision, but orders were

orders. Thanks to ordering of ceasefire with immediate effect by Nehru,

PoK—Pakistan Occupied Kashmir—came into existence; else the whole of

Kashmir would have been with India. And, now it is this PoK which is used

by Pakistan to send terrorists into J&K.

Shakespeare had rightly articulated:

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries;

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.

As per a report, the ceasefire decision was remote-controlled by

Mountbatten, who was by then back in England—such influence

Mountbatten still exercised over Nehru. Commented General SPP Thorat:

“Our forces might have succeeded in evicting the invaders, if the Prime

Minister had not held them in check, and later ordered the ceasefire…

Obviously great pressure must have been brought to bear on him by the

[former Governor-General]… Panditji was a great personal and family

friend of Lord Mountbatten.”{BK2/160}

The military commanders directly involved in the operations of clearing

J&K from the raiders and the Pak-army were General Officer C-in-C,

Western Command, KM Cariappa, and the Operational Commander Major-

General Thimayya.

As per the biography of late Field Marshal KM Cariappa, they both

requested Nehru in December 1948 for a little more time to clear J&K of

Pakistani raiders completely, but Nehru did not heed them. Thimayya had

told Nehru that the Army needed two weeks more to regain lost territory but

Nehru was adamant. It is said that Thimayya found Nehru’s attitude

inexplicable, and left Teen Murti Bhavan, the official residence of the PM,

in disgust. When Cariappa asked Nehru about the decision a few years later,

Nehru conceded that the ceasefire order ought to have been delayed!

Britain had marked out two areas that had to absolutely go to Pakistan—

despite J&K accession to India: (a)One was the northern area along the

Chinese, Russian and Afghanistan borders comprising Gilgit, Hunza,

Nagar, Swat and Chitral. This area commanded as much strategic

importance to Britain and the West as NWFP in Pakistan. Mountbatten had

ensured NWFP went to Pakistan, even though its leader, Khan Abdul

Ghaffar Khan, was opposed to the partition of India. (b)The other area was

the western strip adjoining Pakistani Punjab to secure Pakistan from India,

comprising Muzzafarabad, Mirpur, Bhimbar, Kotli and adjoining areas.

Muzzafarabad is now the capital of PoK. What the British had planned,

they managed to achieve—thanks to the way Nehru acted, or failed to act.

How the British managed to fool India even after independence! Reflects

very poorly on the then Indian leadership.

After J&K acceded to India on 26 October 1947, Major William Brown

of the Gilgit Scouts, although a British contract officer of the Maharaja of

J&K, had the Governor Ghansara Singh imprisoned on 31 October 1947, as

per a pre-meditated plan, and hoisted the Pakistani flag there on

2 November 1947, and declared its accession to Pakistan! This was totally

an illegal action on the part of the British meant to deliberately deny India

access to Central Asia. Mountbatten would surely have known of the goings

on, but did nothing, or rather, allowed the illegality to quietly happen.

Major Khurshid Anwar was one of the Pakistani army officers who had

organised and lead the Pakistani Pathan tribal invasion of J&K. His deputy,

Major Aslam Khan, took charge of Gilgit from Brown. In 1948, Brown was

honoured with the “Most Exalted Order of the British Empire”.

Wrote NV Gadgil, the then Cabinet Minister for Works and Mines in the

Nehru’s Cabinet, in his autobiography ‘Government from Inside’:

“In truth, Nehru did not show much enthusiasm for Kashmir’s accession

at the time… Both the Maharaja and [Meherchand] Mahajan [Premier of

Kashmir] pressed for the acceptance of Kashmir’s accession, but Nehru

would not move. [Nehru then was being guided by Sheikh Abdullah]…

If our army had not received instructions to stop fighting before that date

[1 January 1949], it would have cleared the raiders from whole of

Kashmir…

“The restrain imposed upon our army was motivated by the hope that

Pakistan would be satisfied with a bit of Kashmir occupied by it. Of

course, some of us opposed this view… Sheikh Abdullah was an

ordinary person elevated to an extraordinary position by the Government

of India [Nehru]…

“I am afraid that Nehru is responsible for the prolongation of the problem

through his willingness to compromise at every stage... Had Vallabhbhai

[Patel] been the man to handle the Kashmir question, he would have

settled it long ago. At least, he would never have settled with a partial

control of Jammu & Kashmir. He would have occupied the whole of the

State and would never have allowed it to be elevated to international

importance.”{Mak/445-6} {DFI} {HJS}

MO Mathai, the then private secretary to Nehru, wrote: “Nehru…

ordered a ceasefire in Kashmir at a time when our forces were in a sound

position and poised to roll back the enemy. Nehru’s decision, which was

impulsive, was a grievous error much resented by the armed forces. Nehru’s

was an imitative and an absorptive mind… Essentially, Gandhi’s was an

original mind, while Nehru’s was a second-rate one. He was all heart and

less mind. This is reflected in his books also.”{Mac/170}

Wrote BM Kaul in ‘Confrontation with Pakistan’: “We were politically

unwise in accepting the ceasefire in view of our successes at the time in Uri,

Tithwal, and Kargil.”{YGB/17}

As per the article “Nehru’s Pacifism and the Failed Recapture of

Kashmir” by Sandeep Bamzai in ORF:

“To keep abreast with the developments in Kashmir, Nehru had

dispatched his private secretary and ‘eyes and ears’ Dwarka Nath Kachru

to the frontline...

“Some of Kachru's correspondence is extremely damaging, the prism far

too revealing of how the Indian Army first pushed back the raiders and

then vanquished the Pakistan Army regulars, even having them on the

run... Previously unpublished correspondence [Nehru-Kachru] reveal that

Nehru's pacifism—guided by the principles of fair play [?!] and the fact

that India had referred the Kashmir matter to the United Nations

erroneously on Lord Mountbatten's insistence—meant that the Indian

Army was refused permission to go all the way and reclaim what

eventually became PoK and the Northern Areas…”{URL51}

Nehru can be squarely blamed for the creation of the J&K problem, and

the creation of the PoK.

Blunder–24 :

NEHRU’S SHOCKING CALLOUSNESS IN J&K

Here is an account by of a Hindu survivor who was a witness to the

Mirpur tragedy in J&K, reproduced from the Swarajya Mag{Swa2} :

“On November 23 [1947], Prem Nath Dogra and Professor Balraj

Madhok met Brigadier Paranjape, the Brigade Commander of the Indian

Army in Jammu, and requested him to send reinforcements to Mirpur [a

strategic place where more than one hundred thousand Hindus and Sikhs

were held up during first Pakistani aggression over Kashmir]. Paranjape

shared their agony but expressed his helplessness because—as per

instructions from the army generals—consultation with Sheikh Abdullah

was mandatory in order to deploy Indian troops anywhere in Jammu and

Kashmir. Paranjape also informed the delegation that Pandit Nehru

would come to Srinagar on November 24 [1947] and they should meet

him. On November 24, Pandit Dogra and Professor Madhok met Nehru

and once again told him about the critical situation in Mirpur. They

requested him to order immediate Indian troops reinforcement to the

beleaguered Mirpur City. Professor Madhok was amazed at Pandit

Nehru’s response—Pandit Nehru flew into a rage and yelled that they

should talk to Sheikh Abdullah. Prof Madhok again told Pandit Nehru

that Sheikh Abdullah was indifferent to the plight of the Jammu province

and only Pandit Nehru could save the people of Mirpur. However, Pandit

Nehru ignored all their entreaties and did not send any reinforcements to

Mirpur.”{Swa2}

Mirpur later fell to Pakistani artillery, and became part of PoK. The

Hindus and Sikhs encountered a genocide, and worst orgies of rape and

barbarity.

Blunder–25 :

ARTICLE-370 THANKS TO NEHRU

Article-370 on J&K is thanks to Nehru, who brought it about at the

instance of Sheikh Abdullah, despite opposition by many, including Dr BR

Ambedkar and Sardar Patel.

Gopalaswami Aiyangar, appointed by Nehru, moved Article 306A—

which later became Article 370 in the Indian Constitution—in the

Constituent Assembly on 17 October 1949 guaranteeing special status to

J&K. This was at the instance of Sheikh Abdullah, and with the

concurrence of Nehru. Although many in the Constituent Assembly were

not in favour of it, they consented, keeping in view Nehru’s wish, who was

then the main person steering the J&K policy. Those not in favour included

Ambedkar, Maulana Hasrat Mohani, Sardar Patel, and many others. India,

which was a Dominion, became a Republic on 26 January 1950, and Article

370 came into force for J&K. Why was special provision made for J&K?

Why Article 370? Let’s examine.

J&K had nominated four representatives to the Indian Constituent

Assembly in June 1949—the nominations were made by Yuvraj Karan

Singh on the advice of the Council of Ministers of the State’s Interim

Government led by Sheikh Abdullah. The J&K representatives in the Indian

Constituent Assembly chose to act differently from the other Princely States

—at the behest of Sheikh Abdullah. While the other Princely States were

agreeable to a common Constitution, J&K representatives stated they were

not inclined to accept the future Constitution of India, and they would rather

have their own separate State Constitution. This, they insisted, was allowed

as per clause 7 of the Instrument of Accession. It is another matter that the

representatives of the other States could also have taken the same position

as J&K, for they too had signed the Instrument of Accession, which had the

same content and format as that signed for J&K by the Maharaja. The J&K

representatives also stated that till their new State Constitution was framed,

they would be governed by the old Constitution Act of 1939.

It was to accommodate this that a special provision had to be made for

J&K in the Constitution of India. That provision is Article 370. Of course,

Article 370, labelled "Temporary provisions with respect to the State of

Jammu and Kashmir" was conceived as a temporary arrangement, with

hopes of a full integration in time to come. J&K State Constitution came

into effect on 26 January 1957, comprising 158 Sections, of which Section

3 says, “The State of Jammu and Kashmir is and shall be an integral part of

the Union of India.”

But why were such special provisions allowed. They could have been

blocked by the Constituent Assembly? Interestingly, poor Maharaja Hari

Singh was already out of the picture. Special provisions or no special

provisions—he stood neither to gain nor to lose. It was Abdullah, who after

getting rid of the Maharaja, was trying to secure and upgrade his own

status.

Nehru had brought in Gopalaswami Ayyangar as a Minister without

Portfolio to look after the J&K affairs. Before his visit to Europe, Nehru

had finalised the draft provisions relating to J&K with Sheikh Abdullah,

which later became Article 370. He had entrusted to Gopalaswami

Ayyangar the task of piloting these provisions through the Constituent

Assembly. Ayyangar did the needful. His presentation provoked angry

protests from all sides. Most were opposed to any discriminatory treatment

for J&K. The proposal of Article 370 was torn to pieces by the Constituent

Assembly. Ayyangar was the lone defender, and Maulana Azad was not

able to effectively support him. In the debate, Maulana Hasrat Mohani of

UP stated that while he was not opposed to all the concessions that were

being granted to his friend Sheikh Abdullah, why make such

discrimination; if all those concessions were to be granted to the Kashmir,

why not to the Baroda ruler too.

Dr Ambedkar was firmly opposed to it. Nehru had sent Abdullah to Dr

Ambedkar to explain to him the position and to draft an appropriate Article

for the Constitution. Ambedkar had remarked:

“Mr Abdullah, you want that India should defend Kashmir, India should

develop Kashmir and Kashmiris should have equal rights as the citizens

of India, but you don’t want India and any citizen of India to have any

rights in Kashmir. I am the Law minister of India. I cannot betray the

interest of my country.”{SNS/106}

Upon the refusal of Dr Ambedkar to draft Article-370, it was left to

Gopalaswami Ayyangar to draft the same. When the issue came up for

discussion in the Constituent Assembly, Dr Ambedkar was so disgusted that

he did not take part in it.

Nehru, who was then abroad, rang up Patel and requested him to get the

Article 370 through, and it was for that reason alone that Patel relented, as

Sardar did not wish to embarrass Nehru in his absence. But Sardar

commented, “Jawaharlal royega [Nehru will rue this].”{RG/517}

Strangely, Nehru made a statement on Kashmir in 1952, when Sardar

Patel was no more, “Sardar Patel was all the time dealing with these

matters.” Wrote V Shankar:

“When I was working as his [Gopalaswami Ayyangar] joint secretary the

self-same Article [370] came in for criticism in the Lok Sabha. In

defence, Pandit Nehru took the stand that the Article was dealt with by

Sardar in his absence and he was not responsible for it. I met

Gopalaswami the same day evening as he was walking on the lawn of his

residence. I questioned the bonafides of Pandit Nehru’s stand.

Gopalaswami’s reaction was one of anger and he said, ‘It is an ill return

to the Sardar for the magnanimity he had shown in accepting Panditji’s

point of view against his better judgment.’ He added, ‘I have told

Jawaharlal this already.’”{Shan2/63}

ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES OF ARTICLE-370

There are many adverse consequences of Article 370. Some of them

are: (1)Regionalism, parochialism and secessionism. (2)Denial of

fundamental right to an Indian citizen to settle in J&K permanently.

(3)Denial of fundamental right to an Indian citizen to purchase property in

J&K. (4)Deprivation of right to vote to an Indian citizen, as he or she

cannot become a citizen of J&K. (5)Denial of jobs—an Indian citizen, who

is not also a citizen of J&K, cannot get a job in J&K. (6)A woman, who is a

permanent citizen of the State, loses her property, including ancestral

property, if she gets married to a man who is not a citizen of the State. Also,

she can’t get a job in the State, nor can she get admission in colleges getting

financial aid from the State or the Union Government. (7)Hindu immigrants

who were ousted from their ancestral homes in West Pakistan at the time of

partition and settled in J&K have not yet been given citizenship. This

includes their children and grand-children.

Of course, the biggest negative is that it has come in the way of full

integration of the State, which has gravely harmed both the people of J&K

and India. Article 370 helps protect the corrupt J&K politicians from the

more stringent central provisions, and keeps them out of reach of the CAG.

To the general public, it does not benefit. It is actually counter-productive.

If J&K were like any other state in India, there would have been much more

private investment in it, leading to prosperity.

Jagmohan, who had also been Governor of J&K, writes in his book, ‘My

Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir’:

“Article 370 is nothing but a feeding ground for the parasites at the heart

of paradise. It skins the poor. It deceives them with its mirage. It lines the

pockets of the ‘power elites’. It fans the ego of the new ‘sultans’. In

essence, it creates a land without justice...It suffocates the very idea of

India and fogs the vision of a great social and cultural crucible from

Kashmir to Kanyakumari...

“Over the years, Article 370 has become an instrument of exploitation at

the hands of the ruling political elites and other vested interests in

bureaucracy, business, the judiciary and bar...It breeds separatist forces

which in turn sustain and strengthen Article 370. Apart from politicians,

the richer classes have found it convenient to amass wealth and not allow

healthy financial legislation to come to the State. The provisions of the

Wealth Tax and other beneficial laws of the Union have not been allowed

to operate in the State under the cover of Article 370...”{Jag/230}

Even if Article 370 had to be introduced for whatever reason, it could

have been made applicable only to the Valley, and Jammu and Ladakh

could have been kept out through certain special provisions, or by spinning

them off as separate mini-states or union territories. That would at least

have ensured Jammu and Ladakh developed unhindered by the needless

restrictions that were the by-products of Article 370. Why make Jammu and

Ladakh suffer for the politics of the Valley? There are enough statistics to

show that the people of Jammu and Ladakh have been short-changed and

benefits have been largely cornered for the Valley.

The Article 370 is labelled “Temporary provisions with respect to the

State of Jammu and Kashmir”, and is included in Chapter 21 of the

Constitution dealing with “Temporary, Transitional & Special” provisions.

High time this temporary provision was done away with. Dr Subramanian

Swamy tweeted on 20 June 2018: “Anyone who says Art 370 abolition

needs Parliament approval is either ignorant of the Constitution or an

illiterate. It just needs a Presidential Notification of a Cabinet Resolution.”

Blunder–26 :

ARTICLE 35A FOR J&K, AGAIN THANKS TO NEHRU

Following the ‘1952 Delhi Agreement’ between Nehru and the then J&K

Premier Sheikh Abdullah, Article 35A was added to the Indian Constitution

in a hush-hush manner (without routing it through the Parliament as

required under Article 368) through a Presidential Order of 1954 (in

exercise of the powers conferred by Article 370) on the advice of the Union

Government headed by Nehru empowering the J&K state to define

‘Permanent Residents’ (PR) of the state, and accord them rights and

privileges denied to other citizens of India.

Under the above provisions ‘Permanent Resident Certificates’ (PRC) are

issued to the Permanent Residents of J&K. Among the debilitating and

discriminating provisions for the Indian citizens who don’t hold PRCs are

that they can’t own immovable property in J&K, they can’t get jobs in the

J&K govt, they can’t get admission in a college run by the J&K govt, nor

avail of any scholarships. Also, if a woman who holds a PRC marries a man

who doesn’t hold a PRC then her children and husband can’t exercise any

right in the state, are not entitled to PRC, and can’t inherit her immovable

property in J&K.

This Article 35A, along with the Article 370, has been at the root of non-

complete integration of J&K with India, and hinders development of the

region, as outsiders are handicapped in investing in the region.

The Article has since been challenged in the Supreme Court on several

strong grounds, some of which are as follows. (a)It is illegal because it was

added to the Constitution without following the proper, laid-down (under

Article 368) procedure of the Parliamentary route. (b)It violates Article 14:

Equality before the Law. (c)It violated women’s right to marry as per their

choice.

It is ironical that Article 35A is supposed to be an extension of Article 35

which deals with the ‘Fundamental Rights’ when 35A actually violates the

fundamental rights of an overwhelming majority. Curiously, 35A is not

listed after Article 35 in the Constitution, but is included in the Appendix.

A telling example of the consequences of the iniquitous Article 35A is

the plight of about 200 Valmiki families brought to J&K as ‘Safai

Karamcharis’ (Sanitary workers) in the 1950s on the promise of grant of

PRC. However, even after many decades PRCs have not been granted to

them, and to their children. Many, who have since acquired required

educational qualifications, can’t apply for government jobs in the absence

of PRC. They can vote for the Lok Sabha elections but not for J&K

legislature, or for the local bodies. Their colony has not been regularised.

Another painful example is that of about two lakh Hindu-Sikh refugees who

migrated to J&K from West Pakistan in 1947 after Partition—none has

received PRC, and they can neither acquire immovable property in J&K,

nor avail of educational and other facilities in J&K, nor get government

jobs! They are Indian nationals, but not citizens of the J&K state. Their cry

for justice has gone unheard for decades.

The worst thing about the Article was that although passed on 14 May

1954, it was made applicable retrospectively from 14 May 1944, well

before independence! Hindus from Pakistan entered Jammu in 1947 after

partition, and were thus handicapped, thanks to this Article—demonstrates

how insensitive Nehru was to their plight. Had they been Muslims Nehru’s

stand would have been different and accommodating—like it was in case of

the Muslims from East Bengal.

It is high time this iniquitous Article 35A is dumped along with the

Article 370 from which it flows.

Blunder–27 :

NEHRU’S BLOOD BROTHER WHO DECEIVED

A critical player in the J&K saga was Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, born

in 1905 in Soura, a village on the outskirts of Srinagar. He became famous

as Sher-e-Kashmir: the Lion of Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah’s father was

Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim, a middle class manufacturer and trader of

shawls. Sheikh Abdullah’s grandfather was a Hindu Kashmiri Pandit by the

name of Ragho Ram Koul, who was converted to Islam in 1890 and was

named Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, the name his grandson took. Sheikh

Abdullah married Akbar Jahan in 1933. She was daughter of Michael Harry

Nedou and his Kashmiri wife. Michael owned a hotel at the tourist resort

of Gulmarg—his father was a European proprietor of a chain of hotels in

India including Nedous Hotel in Srinagar.

Sheikh Abdullah did MSc in Chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University

in 1930. It was at the University that he became politically active. He

formed the Muslim Conference, Kashmir's first political party, in 1932, and

later renamed it to National Conference in 1938. The Muslim Conference

founded by Sheikh Abdullah was reportedly communal: some say that he

later changed its name to National Conference only for tactical reasons.

Sheikh Abdullah was a protagonist of Kashmiri nationalism linked to Islam;

and his role model was Dr Mohammad Iqbal, a scion of another Kashmiri

Pundit convert to Islam—like himself—who propounded the ideology of

Pakistan way back in 1930.

Although Gandhi had thought it prudent to keep himself aloof from the

affairs of the Princely States, Nehru had set up “The All-India States'

Peoples' Conference” for the States in 1939. Nehru had associated himself

with Sheikh Abdullah in that capacity. He was supportive of his agitations.

Sheikh Abdullah had launched the ‘Quit Kashmir’ agitation against the

Maharajah in May 1946 leading to his arrest. The agitation, felt most

Congress leaders, was opportunist and malevolent, and driven by selfish

consideration of self-promotion—after all, Maharaja was not an outsider

like the British. Sheikh Abdullah indulged in such acts knowing he would

receive tacit support of Nehru. Although Sheikh Abdullah had tried to

project his fight against the Maharaja as a fight against the feudal order, and

a fight for the people of J&K—something the gullible, socialist Nehru

believed—in reality his purpose was communal, to get Muslim support, and

grab power.

Alarmed at the acts of Sheikh Abdullah, and Nehru’s support to him, the

Kashmiri Pandits had telegrammed Sardar Patel on 4 June 1947:

“The statements of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru concerning Kashmir affairs

being entirely unverified and tendentious are universally condemned and

resented by Hindus of Kashmir. By encouraging Sheikh Abdullah’s

Fascist and Communal Programme he is doing great disservice to the

people of Kashmir. His [Abdullah] unwarranted and wrong statements

about facts and demolishing mosques inflame Muslims against

Hindus…”{Mak/406-7} {BK/374}

Sheikh Abdullah had endeared himself to Nehru—who had called him

‘my blood-brother’—and others by projecting an anti-feudal, democratic,

leftist, pro-India, pro-Congress, and above all, a secular image: perhaps to

get Maharaja Hari Singh out of the way, and then to sit in his place; for his

later actions belied that image, and disappointed and shocked Nehru. S.

Gopal, Nehru’s biographer, had written that Nehru regarded Abdullah as ‘an

old friend and colleague and blood-brother’. Nehru held Abdullah beyond

suspicion, and trusted him fully. For Nehru, Abdullah was Kashmir, and

Kashmir was Abdullah!{BK/372} To have reposed such blind faith in Sheikh

Abdullah and in his capability to deliver, grossly overestimating his

popularity and remaining innocently unsuspicious of his intentions, even to

the extent of being unfair, unjust and insulting to the Maharaja and non-

Muslim Kashmiris, reflected negatively on the expected leadership qualities

from Nehru.

Wrote Sita Ram Goel: “Pandit Nehru had befriended Shaikh Abdullah

simply because the latter was also, and for a long time, a Soviet-addict like

him. I have in my possession several pamphlets published by the People's

Publishing House [publisher of Communist literature] in praise of the Sher-

e-Kashmir. Pandit Nehru dropped Shaikh Abdullah primarily because the

Shaikh picked up a quarrel with Sadiq &Co., the communist clique in

Kashmir.”{SRG2/170-71}

Sheikh Abdullah was made ‘Head of the Emergency Administration’ in

J&K on 30 October 1947 by Maharaja Hari Singh at the instance of Nehru

and Mahatma Gandhi. He took oath as Prime Minister of Kashmir on

17 March 1948. He was accused of rigging elections to the Constituent

Assembly in 1951. He was dismissed as Prime Minister on 8 August 1953,

and was arrested and later jailed for eleven years upon being accused of

conspiracy against the State in what came to be known as the ‘Kashmir

Conspiracy Case’. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed was appointed in his place

—it was he who had arrested Sheikh Abdullah. Wrote MO Mathai:

“When Feroze Gandhi [Indira Gandhi’s husband] heard of the arrest of

Sheikh Abdullah in 1953 he came to my study beaming. He said that

Bakshi did a foolish thing in arresting Sheikh Abdullah, and added that

Bakshi should have had Sheikh Abdullah taken to the top of a lonely hill

on the Azad Kashmir border, pushed down and shot, and published the

news that Abdullah had fled to Pakistan.” {Mac2/L-5660}

Sheikh Abdullah was released on 8 April 1964. Nehru passed away on 27

May 1964. Sheikh Abdullah was later interned from 1965 to 1968. He was

exiled from Kashmir in 1971 for 18 months. Consequent to the Indira-

Sheikh accord of 1974, he became the Chief Minister of J&K and remained

in that position till his death in 1982.

SARDAR PATEL’S CORRECT ASSESSMENT OF SHEIKH ABDULLAH

BN Mullik, who was the then Deputy Director of the IB—the

Intelligence Bureau—with charge of Kashmir, and later head of the IB,

wrote in his book, ‘My Years with Nehru: Kashmir’{BNM2} that his report of

Kashmir of 1949 stating, inter alia, intense local anti-Pak feelings and no

weakening in Sheikh Abdulla’s ideological commitment to India so pleased

Nehru that he had copies of the report circulated to all embassies and

ministries. However, the realist and wise Sardar Patel, with a gift for

making right judgements, was not amused. Here are extracts from the book:

“…Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was unhappy. This report of mine apparently

went against the views which he had held about Kashmir in general and

Sheikh Abdullah in particular. He suspected that the Sheikh was not

genuine and was misleading Pandit Nehru and was not happy that the

report should have been given such wide circulation… A few days after I

had sent the report, the Home Secretary informed me that the Sardar did

not agree with my assessment and had taken exception to the fact that I

had submitted this report without first consulting him…

“I got a summons to see the Sardar the next day. He was not well and was

seated on his bed. He looked at me quietly for some time. Then he asked

me whether I had written the report, a copy of which was in his hands. I

replied in the affirmative. He asked me why I had sent a copy of this to

Jawaharlal without consulting him. I replied that I had submitted the

report to the Director. Sardar Patel then enquired whether I knew that

Jawaharlal had sent copies of this report to all our embassies abroad and

what was my reaction to this. I said that I had heard about the circulation

only the previous day from the Home Secretary and I was naturally

happy to hear that the Prime Minister thought so well of my report that

he had thought fit to circulate it to our Ambassadors abroad. The Sardar

then said that he did not agree with my assessment of the situation in

Kashmir in general and of Sheikh Abdullah in particular…

“The Sardar then gave me his own views about Sheikh Abdullah. He

apprehended that Sheikh Abdullah would ultimately let down India and

Jawaharlal Nehru and would come out in his real colours; his antipathy to

the Maharaja was not really an antipathy to a ruler as such, but to the

Dogras in general and with the Dogras he identified the rest of the

majority community in India. In his slow voice, he firmly told me that

my assessment of Sheikh Abdullah was wrong, though my assessment of

public opinion in Kashmir valley about accession was probably correct.

After having pointed out what he considered to be my error in judgment,

he was, however, good enough to say that he agreed with my views that I

should submit only independent assessments to the Government and not

tailor them to suit the known or anticipated views of particular leaders.

He said that I would soon discover my error but, at the same time, he

complimented me on the way the report had been written and the pains I

had taken over it. This was the greatness of the Sardar. Whilst

disagreeing with my views, he recognised my right to express them…

“That day I came back to my office wondering whether I had really made

a mistake in my assessment of Kashmir and whether what the Sardar had

said was not right after all. Events, as they turned out subsequently,

proved that the Sardar was right and I was not. Within three years we

found ourselves fighting against Sheikh Abdullah. Sardar Patel was dead

by then. Yet, I feel that possibly events might have turned out differently

and the subsequent pain, turmoil, and embarrassments could have been

avoided if the special difficulties of Kashmir had been understood by all

concerned and they had guided their talks and modified their actions on

the basis of this understanding. Probably, things would not have come to

this pass at all if the Sardar was still living, because Sheikh Abdullah had

a very wholesome respect and fear for him.”{BNM2/16-17}

NEHRU REALISES HIS BLUNDER

Nehru ultimately realised his blunder after he discovered what Sheikh

Abdullah really was. Wrote Balraj Krishna:

“Nehru himself came round to Patel's view later in 1962, when he told

Mullik of Abdullah's ‘communal activities throughout the period he had

acted as the National Conference leader. It was the Pakistani aggression

which had mellowed him a little for a short time, because the tribals had

committed gruesome atrocities on the Muslim population in the Valley.

But, as soon as he became Prime Minister, he came out in his true colours

once again and started his anti-Hindu activities... his entire outlook and

behaviour was based on the fact that the Kashmir Valley had a Muslim

majority.'”{BK/395}

Blunder–28 :

WANTING MAHARAJA TO LICK HIS BOOTS

Most unwisely, while Nehru had treated Maharaja Hari Singh

ignominiously, he gave all his support to Sheikh Abdullah, little realising

that but for the Maharaja’s signature on the Instrument of Accession, J&K

could not be a part of India.

When Abdullah launched the ‘abusive and mischievous’{BK/375} Quit

Kashmir agitation against the Maharajah in May 1946 leading to his arrest

(Blunder#27), Nehru decided to go to the Valley in June 1946 to free

Abdullah. Though prohibited to enter the State, Nehru decided to defy the

ban. He proclaimed that he wanted to take on the autocratic and the feudal

rule that prevailed in Kashmir. Autocratic and feudal rule prevailed in the

other 547 Princely States too that ultimately merged with India: Did Nehru

go to any of those 547 states to similarly protest—especially the recalcitrant

Nizam-ruled state of Hyderabad, where Hindus had been brutally at the

receiving end of the Razakars? Nehru did not seem to realise that the

support of the princes and their collaboration would be indispensable in the

coming months for persuading them to accede to India. To take on the

Maharaja at that stage, and that too as Congress president, was politically

wise. Sardar Patel and others tried to dissuade him, yet he went. Sardar

Patel wrote to DP Mishra: